Christies Pulls $15 Million Car From Auction

by Nicole Weston (RSS feed)
Feb 14th 2007 at 10:04AM

Christies announced a few months ago that a 1939 Auto Union D-Type, a racing car that was part of a collection commissioned by Adolph Hitler, was to be auctioned at the Rétromobile 2007 show in Paris on February 17. But that particular item will not enter the auction after all; Christies has just pulled the car from the show, "pending further exploration into the car's race history."

It is decidedly odd that the auction house would decide to pull a car valued at $12-$15 million just a few days before it was to be sold, but despite months of research into the history of the object (which were undoubtedly necessary to price it in the first place), if they aren't confident about their estimate, it is far better to remove it for a later sale then take a chance on a bidder spending that much money for something not worth it.

The car is one of five that remained after Josef Stalin had a fleet confiscated and disassembled for mechanics to study their inner workings, including a rear-mounted engine capable of pushing the car up to 270 mph. This particular car was discovered, clearly in salvageable condition, in the 1980s and has been sold several times for prices up to $10 million in the past few years.

Tags: auction, car, cars, christies, hitler, stalin

Filed under: Luxury Cars & Autos, Auctions

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Jennifer Feb 16th 2007 9:52PM

NOT WORTH COMMENTING ON!

bruce tallini Feb 16th 2007 9:17PM

Magnificent race car. If authentic it's well worth the estimate. Germany was on top in many areas of 20th century research and development. Hitler's race cleansing destroyed the balance that made that society so great. The rest of the world should have stepped up and swept him from the world's stage after Munich. There are many paralells between Hitler and Osama Bin Laden and his followers. Support your President, he's not able to explain why he's doing what he's doing - but he is right!