Extremely rare cars worth up to €12 million found in French village shelters
Discovery described as 'between a metallic graveyard and a museum'
In a small village in western France, in makeshift shelters bared to the elements, a treasure trove of extremely rare cars has been discovered after lying forgotten for almost 50 years.
Under a pile of dusty old car magazines, one of only 37 Ferrari 250 GT SWB California Spiders ever made, and now valued at up to €12 million (HK$93.04 million) is among some 60 classic gems discovered by the Artcurial auction house.
The once-in-a-lifetime discovery, announced earlier this month, was likened by Artcurial managing director Matthieu Lamoure to stumbling upon the car world's equivalent of the tomb of Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun. He and senior specialist Pierre Novikoff got a tip-off about the timeworn fleet while criss-crossing the country earlier this year hunting for rare pieces.
"This was somewhere between a metallic graveyard and a museum," said Novikoff, describing valuable cars invaded by ivy, and in some cases corrugated iron resting directly on the cars.
"We were overcome with emotion. Probably much like Lord Carrington and Howard Carter, on being the first for centuries to enter Tutankhamun's tomb," said Lamoure.
They may be rusted and weather-beaten, but the legendary names such as Bugatti, Hispano-Suiza, Talbot-Lago, Panhard-Levassor, Maserati, Ferrari, Delahaye and Delage are described by Artcurial as true "works of art".
The California Spider found on the farm - a model that features 13 times on the list of the 100 most expensive cars ever sold - had been bought new by French actor Gerard Blain and later sold to fellow actor Alain Delon.
Delon was photographed with American actresses Jane Fonda and Shirley MacLaine in the car, which historians thought to be lost forever.
"This is surely the last time that such a discovery will be made, anywhere in the world. What is so special here is the number of cars, the range and the quality and pedigree of the models," said Novikoff.
But how does such a jackpot of mythical automobiles end up on a rural French farm, left to rust for half a century?
While classic cars are now snapped up and extremely valuable, this was not the case a few decades ago when inventor and automobile enthusiast Roger Baillon became one of the world's first collectors.
He had a transport business in the west of France where in 1947 he designed and built his own car known as the Bluebird, all while raking in a fortune in the post-second world war boom in the sector.
He bought the property in 1953 to turn into an automobile museum, and started snapping up classic cars, saving them from the scrapyard.
"When the vehicles arrived he put them away without much fuss, one next to the other. He restored some and left others as they were," said Novikoff.
Much of the collection was built up between 1955 and 1965.
But when the 1970s swung in, Baillon's business went into decline, and he held a large sale of his car collection at the end of the decade and to car historians, that was the end of that.
But it turned out he had clung on to many of the collection's best jewels.
