Rusty car sells for over $850k[PICS]

Don't go quoting us on this, but this has got to be one of the most
expensive barn finds we've ever seen. Christie's sold this 1938 Bugatti
for a staggering $852,500 at the Greenwich Concours d'Elegance earlier this summer, more than twice the highest pre-sale estimate and close to the price of a new Bugatti.

The car was admitted to the Pebble Beach preservation class, and
when its new owner gets it up to spec, it'll undoubtedly be the beauty
it once was. The 1938 Type 57C you see here is actually a bit of an
amalgamation of two Bugattis that were both owned by the same pre-war
collector. The chassis itself belonged to a Type 57 Stelvio cabriolet
with bodywork by Gangloff, a coachbuilder based in Colmar near the
Bugatti factory in Molsheim in the French region of Alsace. In time for
display at the French pavilion at the 1939 World's Fair in New York,
the body was switched for that of the Type 57C Atalante (not to be
confused with the more rare and iconic Atlantic).

Now of course there's value in classics, but as far as vintage
motorcarriages go, this one's in pretty bad shape. Having sat in
storage since 1962, the paint is chipped and faded, the chrome is
rusty, the tires are history, the engine's grimy and the leather is
worn out. A handyman's dream, let's call it. An $850k handyman's dream.