Off Topic: The story about the Bugatti from Lago Maggiore

From time to time I read some Magazines about Custom Cars. During this weekend I red a story that could be taken from a Hollywood Movie script and I now want to share this amasing story with you. Here it comes….

Max Schmuklerski, born in Zurich, worked from 1933 till 1936 in Ascona as Architect. During this time he owned an Bugatti Brescia Typ 22 with French number plates on it.

The chassis of this car with the number 2461 was fabricated in Nancy, and registered 1930 in Paris. Max never registered the Car in his home country and never payed the import duty. As Max has gone back to Zurich in 1936 he left the Bugatti in garage of the construction company Barra where he worked in this 3 years . The people at Barra don’t wanted to get in trouble with customs, they put a chain on the Bugatti and then they countersunk the car in the Largo Maggiore and forgot it over time. The chain got damaged by the rust and so the Bugatti reached the bottom of the lake in a depth of 53 meters and so the left side of the car got preserved by the mud on the ground. Over 30 years the Lago Maggiore keep this little secret for himself, but the scuba diver Ugo Pillon discovered the secret in 1967, till 2009 it was a very special place for under water photographers and diving tourists. 

bugatti-ascona2.jpg bugatti.jpg

In the summer of 2009 the Bugatti got rescued by Jens  Boerlin and the Ascona Diver Club. In January of 2010 the story comes to his end. This vehicle got auctioned and finally sold for 260.000 Euro. The new home of the car is the Peter Mullin Collection in California. The Brescia Typ 22 will remain as it is, no restoration is planned just conservation.
 

 

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