FRENCH MARVELS AT MULLIN SALE
Gooding & Company will hold an auction at the Mullin Automotive Museum in Oxnard, California, on 26 April, offering cars from the late Peter Mullinʼs collection with no reserve. “He no doubt will go down in history as one of this worldʼs greatest visionaries,” said Gooding & Co boss David Gooding, “especially in the realm of French classic and Art Deco cars.”
One of the most recognisable of the collection is the 1939 Bugatti Type 57C Aravis Special Cabriolet, the sole remaining example of three such cars built with Gangloff coachwork. The T57 was created for Bugatti team driver Maurice Trintignant and campaigned by the French ace at the Grand Prix du Comminges in ʼ39. Trintignant sold the car in 1947 and it was acquired by Mullin in 2002. He received the driverʼs advice on the Bugattiʼs rebuild, with the finished car winning the Pebble Beach Concours dʼélégance in 2005. It is estimated to sell for $2.5-3.5m.
Another Bugatti, a 1930 Type 46 Semi-profilée Coupé, is expected to fetch $650-850,000. First sold to a serial Bugatti-owning physician in Prague after its distinctive coachwork by Oldřich Ulik was completed in 1934, chassis 46136 was later fully restored by marque expert Barrie Price.
The 1935 Hispano-suiza J12 Cabriolet (C&SC, October 2021), prized by collector Mullin since he acquired it in 1992, will be another of the saleʼs highlights, wearing an estimate of $2.5-3.5m. Just eight open-topped examples of this 9.4-litre luxury behemoth were built by the Parisian coachbuilder Vanvooren. Registered to a film producer in Paris in 1937, it was exported to the USA in the 1950s and owned by enthusiasts Richard Paine, founder of the Seal Cove Auto Museum, and John Mozart, who commissioned an extensive rebuild. In Mullinʼs ownership, the car won the Designerʼs Choice award at the Concours of America and Best of Show at the Montecito Concours dʼelegance.
A Delage with a remarkably glitzy past will also be on offer. The 1937 D8-120 Three-position Cabriolet by Chapron, expected to achieve $800,000-1m, was once appropriated by a French general of the Vichy government, but in 1946 it was sent to California and sold to RKO Studios. It starred in the 1951 film An American in Paris, alongside Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron, and was later sold to special-effects artist Thol ʻSiʼ Simonson, famous for his work on Adventures of Superman, before Mullin bought it at auction in 1987.
Joining Mullinʼs cars at his eponymous museum on 26 April will be a selection of cars on sale from the legendary Schlumpf brothersʼ collection, including a 1937 Auto Union-wanderer W25K Roadster and a brace of Bugattis.
Some of the Mullin collection has already changed hands at The Amelia on 29 February-1 March (above right), including a 1925 Bugatti Type 35C, which achieved $582,500 against a $600-800,000 guide; a 1948 Delahaye 135MS Cabriolet for $390,000 (estimate $200-300,000); and a quartet of coachbuilt Citroën DSS, headed by a 1965 Majesty at $207,200.