1937 Bugatti Atalante 57S

How much would you pay for this car?

How about 3.5 million euros or $4.53 million? Just the way it is.

This two-seat 1937 Bugatti Atalante 57S coupe is one of the greatest barn finds of the decade. Only 17 of these were made and after collecting dust for the past 50 years it was sold for an absurd $4.35 million dollars! Imagine having found this one! You wouldn’t even want to restore it and just auction it off exactly the way it is, which is what the lucky finder of this thing did.

Since 1955 this Bugatti was owned by a surgeon named Harold Carr, and it was only discovered after his death in late 2007 by his nephew. This English New Castle native doctor had left his family the contents of his locked up garage. The 130 miles-an-hour coupe has 26,284 miles about the clock and the engine has not been fired up for more than 50 years. Dr Carr’s nephew knew that his uncle had an old aston martin and an E type jaguar, but imagine his surprise when he opened up the garage and found this old coupe.

The estimate of the restoration job on this car is estimated to be around 500.000 pounds which is nearly double in dollars, but with a car like this you’re not going to want to cut any corners and do everything  absolutely top notch.

This car was originally made for the British Racing Drivers’ Club Earl Howe who won the 24-hour endurance race at Le Mans with it two years later.

In august 2008 another one of these sold for $7.92 million at Gooding & Co.’s auto auction in California. This one was restored. I guess the 500.000 pound bill may have been worth it.

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