A classic Bugatti car, which gathered dust in a Tyneside garage for almost 50 years, may fetch up to $4.35 million when it goes under the hammer.
Relatives of reclusive Newcastle doctor Harold Carr found the 1937 Type 57S Atalante in a garage after he died. Now the classic car, thought to be one of just 17 built, is to be sold by Bonhams in Paris next month.
Dr Carr, a former army surgeon, left the contents of a lock-up garage to his family when he died in 2007.
As well as the Bugatti, his nephew also discovered a classic Aston Martin, and a Jaguar E-type in the lock-up.
The nephew, an engineer from Newcastle, said: “We just can’t believe it. Of course we’re delighted and we’re going to make sure the money is shared out among the family. It’s a wonderful thing to leave.”
Wow!
I do hope you mean “gavel” instead of “hammer.” That word brings too many old car demolition fundraisers ($5 per swing with a sledgehammer, common in the Midwest during the 80s) to mind.
A few decades ago, I could have bought a Mercedes Gull Wing OR an authentic AC Cobra. I declined in both cases assuming I would wreck them while driving and/or they would be rapidly stolen from me.
Wish I had a lockable garage I could afford? In a society free from guns and burglars. That provided essential services like healthcare. That was free from stoopid religious impulses (tv just said 65% of people believe angels are real and interact with people in real life –up it to 80% for “something spiritual” going on.)
But life goes on.
Wow! What a find. It’s an amazing looking car.
Strangely enough, that was the Guess this Car on Cage Match for Oct. 4 of last year.
#2 – Bobo
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. And you’ve begun already with your relentless persecution of people of faith, in a thread about a classic car no less!
You really are a one-trick pony.
I was into Kit Cars for quite a while: http://decorides.com/ProjectJeanPauline.htm
with some interesting info.
A buying tip for classic car buyers, tap it, if it’s fiberglass, it isn’t legit. Just an FYI.
With my luck when I open up my in-laws garage I’ll find a rusted Pinto next to that classic Maverick…
I once met a guy just east of Toronto. In one of his barns was an old 30s Harley Davidson flathead buried under a half inch of dust. He was planning on digging it out sometime. He didn’t think it ran.
I have had three MG’s & I drove them & enjoyed them as they were meant to be. Top down with the wind in your face.
Putting an automobile in the garage is not for me. Wear it out.
My third MG has been rebuilt twice & my son now sports his family about with the top down.
I can’t help but wonder if this army surgeon didn’t keep these classic cars locked up (and didn’t drive any of them, enough for his family to remember them), because he was afraid somebody might ask how he could afford them. I know surgeons make good money in civilian practice. But the US Army doesn’t pay top dollar for it doctors. And often, they’re in the Army because they got into too much trouble in their civilian career. And the military asked few questions about doctors’ histories. They’re just happy to get any doctors, at all. But I don’t see the Army shelling out for top brain surgeons, of the like. And an army doctor with a garage full of vintage cars, he didn’t show anyone, in kind of suspect. How’d he afford them? How he came by them? Why was he hiding them? Etc. One wonders how many works of art from WW2 have ended up in the garages of former military officers? And their next of kin find them, and have no idea where it came from?
So this former army surgeon had no better idea of what to do with his paycheck, other than to buy some expensive toys, he kept locked away, collecting dust. Glad he never operated on me.
# 7 Ah_Yea said, on January 1st, 2009 at 2:58 pm With my luck when I open up my in-laws garage I’ll find a rusted Pinto next to that classic Maverick…
Wouldn’t be to bad if the Maverick was one of the four they made out of stainless steel.
Had it been given the garage’s contents to a woman she would have thrown it right away to the garbage dump without even thinking about it.
Glenn…the one that got to me was on Antique’s Roadshow a few years back. A guy finds a helmet wedged in the rafters of his old house in NYC or someplace. Turns out it’s a medieval war helmet from the 1400’s or something, with the better part of $1M. How the hell did that helmet get there? War treasure, most likely.
This Dr might have fixed something for somebody important, maybe a Nazi, and this was his reward. Just a guess though. Too bad he didn’t tell that story or write it down somewhere.