Auction
Being unmarried and having no children, Carr left his possessions to his nieces and nephews. Other family members had been aware that Dr Carr had possessed the Bugatti and other cars, but the true value of the car had remained unknown to them, coming as a surprise. The Carr family instructed the auction house Bonhams to sell the car, with the proceeds to be shared between eight relatives who inherited his estate. It was to form the centrepiece of their sale at the Rétromobile car show in Paris, and be sold on 7 February 2009. The car would have a reserve price of £3 million. Analysts speculated that the car could be sold for up to £6 million, making it the most expensive car ever sold at auction. (As of 2005 six of the most expensive cars sold for over £3 million, with the most expensive, a 1931 Bugatti Royale Kellner Coupe sold for £4.87 million in 1987, holding the record for the most expensive car sold at auction, adjusted for inflation.) While the car would attract global buyers, in November 2008 opinions were varied as to whether the classic car auction market had been affected by the 2008 recession affecting the United Kingdom economy.
On the discovery of 57502, other less desirable Type 57S Atalantes were said to have sold for millions in recent years. An Atalante which did not have its original chassis, but was built by combining an Atalante body on a Type 57C chassis, was sold at auction in 2007 for $852,500, from a top estimate of $400,000.
Read more about this topic: Bugatti Type 57S Atalante (57502)
Famous quotes containing the word auction:
“The white American man makes the white American woman maybe not superfluous but just a little kind of decoration. Not really important to turning around the wheels of the state. Well the black American woman has never been able to feel that way. No black American man at any time in our history in the United States has been able to feel that he didn’t need that black woman right against him, shoulder to shoulder—in that cotton field, on the auction block, in the ghetto, wherever.”
—Maya Angelou (b. 1928)