RareCar

The Barn Bugatti Sells At Auction

Filed under: Luxury Cars & Autos, Auctions

From the barn to the auction block, a rare Bugatti Atalante 57S that had been tucked away in a barn for half a century had its moment in the sun this weekend. The car was auctioned off in Paris as part of the Bonhams Retromobile sale. The estimated value had been listed as high as £6 million (about $8.8 million) and the official estimate was between 2.75 million euros and 4 million euros. Bloomberg reports that it sold for 3.5 million euros ($4.53 million). The two-seat 1937 Bugatti Atalante 57S coupe was one of 17 vehicles of its type and had just 26,284 miles odometer. This number was far less than the $7.92 million that, as my colleague Jared Paul Stern reported, another 1937 Bugatti Type 57SC Atalante coupe sold for last summer. That car, however, was in much better shape, the new owner of the barn Bugatti is facing a restoration bill in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Source

Tags: atalante, auction, bonhams, bugatti, cars, rare car, RareCar

Jay Leno Sued Over Rare Car

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Luxury Cars & Autos, Celebrity Shopping

Tonight Show host Jay Leno is a noted car enthusiast but his enthusiasm may have him in a bit of trouble. Bloomberg reports that Leno bought a rare 1931 Duesenberg luxury roadster through what has been called a "sham" auction while the elderly owner was suffering from dementia.. The car in question is a 1931 Duesenberg luxury roadster valued by its owner at $1.7 million. Leno paid $180,000 to the Manhattan garage, that said the owner, now deceased, hadn't paid his bill and sold the Dusenberg and his 1930 Rolls Royce. Wendy Lubin, daughter of late Macy's executive John Straus, has sued Leno, 58, his company Big Dog Productions Inc., and the Upper East Side Windsor Garage where she says the cars were parked for more than 50 years. The complaint filed in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan says that the cars were auctioned off to satisfy "relatively trivial parking bills." They also says that they garage tried to confuse Straus with multiple bills and refusing his checks to pay the Windsor garage bills, and that they never contacted hi or his family. The plaintiffs seek damages of more than $1.7 million and return of the Duesenberg.

Tags: dusenberg, jay leno, JayLeno, rare car, RareCar, vintage car, VintageCar