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for Fangio's W196 race car :

http://www.bonhams.com/video/14103/

Let the Shelby guys put that in their pipe and smoke it!

I do have to wonder what a Royale would bring if one came up for sale.

Chris Johnson

I saw that car in a private collection in Germany about 7 or 8 years ago. The guy also had a full set of M-100s. 600 SWB, LWB, Landaulet, 6.3. 6.9.

That price is because there was/is only ONE in privat hands available worldwide.

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Originally posted by Chris Johnson

Let the Shelby guys put that in their pipe and smoke it!

I do have to wonder what a Royale would bring if one came up for sale.

Chris Johnson

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Chris, do you mean the Bugatti Royale ???

Hi Paul,

Yes I do.

Seven built, six survive. All six were at Pebble Beach a few years ago

Chris Johnson

If my memory is correct, this is the 7th one made up from parts according to the original order. I took this at Pebble Beach in 1992.





Here is another one on the lawn at the same time.





Here we are having lunch later with the two of them in the restaurant.




That's my friend Wolf Grodd standing at the back behind Desley and Cheryll.





I wonder who bought the W196

I wouldn't want to have to drive one, but they sure are something to look at.

Twenty years, or so, ago was that last public offering of a Royale that I know of, and it went for $10M at that time, setting a new world record auction price. I can only speculate as what one would bring today, but I've always figured that it would be at least $20M.

The W196s have always been the best looking racers that Mercedes ever built, in my opinion. It doesn't seem to matter which body they had, they were all just excellent.

Chris Johnson

Were they all RHD? The 3 pictured are. The Park Ward looks LHD in one picture. They were built too late to be RHD by convention.
Art
P.S. I was just looking at Wikipedia, and whoever wrote the Royale article there reckons that Volkswagen (who "own" the Bugatti brand) paid $20 Million for the one they have in 1999 - private sale -so Chris, your estimate may be too low[;)].

http://www.flavorsofthought.com/costliest-cars-ever-sold.html

I remember to be on vacation in Spain in 1982, when it after some days did rain the hole day. So we returned home and on the way back home we visited the new bugatti museum in Mulhouse in France. There was a "royale" shown between more then 100 other bugatti's.

The museum was shortly before opened after confiscating the collected fleet of Bugatti's from the Schlumpf brothers .......

So Chris ,
your memory is excellent. The " Kellner Coupe " : 10 miljon ...

Art, that one on yours picture looks the same as : " Royale Berline de Voyager "

Did you know that the used motors in a royale were original designed and also used for locomotivs ???

Paul,
That is correct. It is in the Blackhawk collection near San Francisco which is where we had lunch.

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Originally posted by paul-NL

for Fangio's W196 race car :

http://www.bonhams.com/video/14103/

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FYI : as buyer from fangio's racer is mentioned : The emir of Qatar .....