[2] Unusual for the time, it had front-wheel drive and sensational bodywork, the flat and long limousine version of which was also known as la flèche d'or ("the golden arrow").

The Bucciali brothers, from a Corsican family, were born in Boulogne-sur-Mer in northern France and worked as piano and organ builders in their hometown.

[4] After World War I, they founded Société Bucciali Frères, based in Courbevoie near Paris, which produced a series of small, conventionally styled sports cars from 1922.

[11] As a result, the Bucciali brothers stopped producing conventionally designed automobiles at the end of 1925.

[13] Beginning in 1926, the company, now explicitly known as Bucciali, presented a new design at each of the annual Paris Motor Shows held in October, most of which were an evolution of previous concepts.

TAV stood for Traction Avant (= front-wheel drive), while the 12 denoted the tax class or the number of cylinders, depending on the source.

[12] The TAV 12 was the last of the Bucciali brothers' seven front-wheel-drive cars, and the only one that was not built primarily for show, but for a client.

In the early months of 1932, Bucciali was commissioned by Roures to produce a large four-door Limousine (French: Berline) nicknamed la flèche d'or.

[15] In October 1932, la flèche d'or was presented to the public at the Paris Motor Show.

La flèche d'or was probably[2] a single unit; in any case, only one car of this type is in existence today.

[19] The wheelbase of the Bugatti was half a meter shorter than that of the Bucciali, which meant that the body had to be shortened considerably at the front.

[18] In 1976, the body and the Bucciali chassis came into the hands of an American collector, who had the la flèche d'or rebuilt.

The engine, gearbox, front-wheel drive, suspension, and most of the sheet metal parts could be taken over from the original vehicle.

Since the late 1990s, the TAV 12 has been on public display several times, including at the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance (2006).

[11] In the early months of 1932, Bucciali produced a large four-door limousine (French: Berline) for Roures, nicknamed la flèche d'or.

The body was of mixed construction, consisting of sheet steel shells nailed to a wooden frame.

As on the earlier TAV Buccialis models, a stylized stork was mounted on the side vents of the hood.

It was a reference to the Escadrille des Cigognes (Stork Squadron)[20] in which Paul-Albert Bucciali had participated during the First World War.

[10] The Voisin engine, designed for a rear-wheel drive car, was mounted upside down in the Bucciali, so that the flywheel with the clutch was at the front.

La flèche d’or V-arrangement (Knight system slide gate motor) Transverse at the front (length × width × height):