[SPEAKER_00]: France 1945, chaos and confusion reign at the conclusion of the Second World War. [SPEAKER_00]: As Europe tries to rebuild the rubble, a tale unfolds of a missing artistic masterpiece, a Bugatti, a car like no other, known as the Levitwar Noir, the Black Car. [SPEAKER_00]: Did the Nazi steal this prized automobile? [SPEAKER_00]: Was it destroyed or is it hidden away? [SPEAKER_00]: Waiting to be discovered?
[SPEAKER_00]: The black car, if found, would be the most expensive car in the world. [SPEAKER_00]: Worth hundreds of millions of dollars. [SPEAKER_00]: Today's episode is a re-release of a classic episode with special guest, Tim Donahue. [SPEAKER_00]: This is a study of strange. [SPEAKER_01]: Of the two of us, you are definitely more cone-in-like, right? [SPEAKER_01]: I'll take it. [SPEAKER_00]: I'll take it. [SPEAKER_00]: All right here. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna start.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, welcome back to the show. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm Michael May. [SPEAKER_00]: Today, I'm joined by a gentleman named Timothy Donahue. [SPEAKER_00]: Tim, how are you doing? [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think you've ever called me a gentleman. [SPEAKER_00]: There's a first time I'm wrong. [SPEAKER_01]: Are you with the rest? [SPEAKER_01]: It's a first time. [SPEAKER_01]: There's a gun in the room. [SPEAKER_01]: Well, thank you for having me happy to have you to be here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, so Tim was on one of my first episodes. [SPEAKER_00]: What did we talk about? [SPEAKER_00]: Was it spirit photography? [SPEAKER_00]: I think it was super fast. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: It was actoplasm and all kinds of things. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, it's good stuff. [SPEAKER_00]: That actually is a very good episode. [SPEAKER_00]: People should go back and listen to it. [SPEAKER_00]: I think my format has gotten a little more concise than it used to be.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's still a fun topic. [SPEAKER_00]: Today we have something a little, I guess spirit photography is a relatively light topic. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, they're dead people involved, so it's a little bit. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so it's a little more macabre. [SPEAKER_01]: It's mostly just like, you know, visual effects. [SPEAKER_01]: That's really, there you go. [SPEAKER_01]: There you go, that's really a 20th century visual effects.
[SPEAKER_00]: But today we're talking about a treasure, a real life treasure hunt. [SPEAKER_00]: And this one doesn't involve pirates or buried pieces of eight. [SPEAKER_00]: This is a thousand and fast. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I don't give away too much. [SPEAKER_01]: There might be pirates. [SPEAKER_00]: There might be pirates, yes. [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe there's the Declaration of Independence, you never know. [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's closer to that.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are Nazis involved, and this is a kinetic piece of art that is missing, that went missing during World War II because of the Nazis. [SPEAKER_00]: But unlike, you know, it's not a painting or, you know, monuments, men kind of thing. [SPEAKER_00]: It is an automobile. [SPEAKER_00]: Let's see if I can pronounce this right in. [SPEAKER_00]: You got a lot of what toward noir. [SPEAKER_00]: I think that's pretty good. [SPEAKER_00]: That's the best I've heard today.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, nice. [SPEAKER_00]: Which means the black car and it is chassis number 57453. [SPEAKER_00]: Although we'll talk about that in the theories because there are some issues with that. [SPEAKER_00]: So Tim is on the show today because Tim and I hosted and worked on some automobile shows where we talked about mysteries and crimes and all sorts of strangeness around historically significant automobiles caught autobiography.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I spent years looking up at very tall and talking about these things. [SPEAKER_01]: It may not be able to tell from the audio only for me. [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, this is, yeah, the radio version of this is very different. [SPEAKER_01]: But you can, it might be obvious, I don't know. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you could just listen to this back and be like, I'm clearly taller than him by about eight inches. [SPEAKER_00]: In here. [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is a topic that you and I almost covered in season two of our show, but COVID hit. [SPEAKER_00]: And we could not travel to Europe and go to all these places anymore because of this thing called COVID. [SPEAKER_00]: And so we had to scratch it, but I did a ton of research, I think I even wrote an episode for this topic.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we went deep into it, I talked to Peter Mullen, who owned one of the versions of this car, who has recently passed away, RIP, Mr. Mullen, and got some insight from him. [SPEAKER_00]: But the most amazing thing about this story is that this car, if found, [SPEAKER_00]: is the most expensive car on the planet, bar none.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of the other existing versions, and I'll get into the details of this in a second, is already worth $100 million or more, and so this one is sort of the special one and the one that has some a little more provenance, just because of being missing and dealing with stuff like this, it is going to be more expensive than that. [SPEAKER_01]: If it is story goes a long way. [SPEAKER_01]: I think Bugatti actually made a version of I think it was a sharon.
[SPEAKER_01]: They did a what your noir of that. [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, hypercars. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it was the most expensive at the time production car who was you know allegedly sold to I think Cristiano Ronaldo. [SPEAKER_01]: I think it was like 16 million dollars. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's a new version that they can find.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when you factor in the, you know, that it's just like, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the ether somewhere, it's got all this sort of story behind it and people have been looking for it forever and there's this huge pen up demand. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it would be like the bullet card of the extreme if anyone ever rolled it out onto the stage, it, you know, gooding or RRM and it was like, all right, who want to crack at this one? [SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, it's a pretty, pretty wild one if it ever shows up. [SPEAKER_00]: it is. [SPEAKER_00]: So let me back up here. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to fill in people with the details because my listeners on this show are not the same viewers from autobiography that don't know as much about cars. [SPEAKER_00]: So I want to give some significance and information about this missing masterpiece. [SPEAKER_00]: We've got to understand the world that it came from.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the year was 1909. [SPEAKER_00]: There's my story voice [SPEAKER_00]: And that was, but it also, and in the small town of Mulshim, which is in the El Sace region of France, although at the time it was part of Germany, an Italian-born man named, now here's where my pronunciation and Tim will tell you when we recorded the show, he always had to constantly tell me how to pronounce things, including just like American words because I can't talk.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I've always heard at Toray Bugatti, but earlier when I was re-researching this topic, I was hearing that pronounced a little differently, but I called him I've always said at Toray. [SPEAKER_01]: So, yeah, Toray Bugatti, it's not very, yeah, it's a Toray Bugatti.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think that's right, because I had said for years admittedly Bugatti, you know, I mean a lot of people slide into that and then I started hearing Bugatti from like the real, you know, insider hardcore car people and maybe people who can just read better and and and I have corrected it and I've instilled that in my children. [SPEAKER_01]: As for some reason, I think because of YouTube, my son has obsessed with Bugatti. [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, wow.
[SPEAKER_01]: Literally never seen it. [SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, anyway, that's crazy. [SPEAKER_00]: No, that's amazing. [SPEAKER_00]: So anyway, at Toribugati, he founded an automobile company that would become known for basically elegance speed engineering perfection. [SPEAKER_00]: The cars that his company was building were built to race. [SPEAKER_00]: And there's a lot of provenance because of that design, the engineering and speed and everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a very highly respected car company. [SPEAKER_00]: And it's original, you know, incarnations of it. [SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, it was in my notes, I wrote, they were built to race unlike Lamborghinis today. [SPEAKER_00]: I like how your son likes Bugatti's and my son likes Lamborghinis because they're on Mr. [SPEAKER_00]: Beast videos, and I'm always like, God, stop. [SPEAKER_01]: No, the Lamborghinis have come over a few times as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I keep, they have, [SPEAKER_01]: uh, a copy of like two children's books that are all about Ferraris that are like mazes and like look-and-fines, but they're like about Ferrari only. [SPEAKER_01]: So, and they've had those for years in an attempt to sort of indoctrinate them a bit. [SPEAKER_01]: But somehow, yeah, you can't, you can't fight the other, uh, the other exposure systems of like, yeah, so Lamborghini is more of a thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I'm like, guys, it's, you know, look at a, look at a 996 right now. [SPEAKER_01]: Is there a better looking car? [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, Lamborghini's are built for Instagram. [SPEAKER_00]: Bugatti's were built to win races. [SPEAKER_00]: That's, that's the way I kind of differentiate things. [SPEAKER_00]: So just as an example of some racing pedigree, the first ever win at the Monaco Grand Prix was a Bugatti.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was in the, I think it was early 1930s when that happened. [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm not going to go into some of the crazy stories here, but due to the death of a Tory son, John in 1939, while he was testing the Type 57 tank. [SPEAKER_00]: I think the Type 57 G tank, which Tim got to write in on our show with his gangly head hanging out the top of the top of it. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'm about three feet out of the top of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he passed away while testing one of the cars, and this is obviously World War II was gearing up in 39 and hitting the gas pedal itself, and then Atari's death in 1947, the company went into decline, and it's original incarnation of the company folded in the early 1950s. [SPEAKER_00]: But we're here to talk about La Vlatore, noir, you're welcome from James. [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for the relative of the close. [SPEAKER_00]: Good enough. [SPEAKER_00]: Good enough.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the missing car in late 1936, Jean Bugatti was, he was a very special designer, honestly. [SPEAKER_00]: I know there's a little bit of like, what do they call it? [SPEAKER_00]: Like kids in Hollywood that are have famous parents. [SPEAKER_00]: What's that term? [SPEAKER_00]: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, baby.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even though there's a bit of like a neppo baby because his dad runs the company and he got to work there as a designer basically as a kid He was actually a very talented designer and it was a great mix of his designs with his dad's engineering to make these cars and John even became the head of the company in his 20s It was an incredible designer to say the least [SPEAKER_00]: And he was inspired to make a sports coupe that was influenced highly by basically planes.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that went into a lot of the designs of some of these Bugatti's in the mid-30s. [SPEAKER_00]: And he officially named one of these cars, the Type 57 SC at Lantique. [SPEAKER_00]: four were built, three are accounted for today. [SPEAKER_00]: Tim, we're remote. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not giving away any secrets. [SPEAKER_00]: That's the way a lot of people do podcasts now. [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if you can pull up really quick just a picture of the black car, love by twirlard noir.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would love for you to sort of describe it and especially sort of the dorsal fan aspect. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, absolutely. [SPEAKER_01]: I was actually just [SPEAKER_01]: It's interesting how the Bugatti story sort of eerily mirrors the Ferrari story with some Zo and Dino and Dino being an engineer and designer, and both sort of tragically dying young, Dino is from an illness, but it's just sort of an odd story where they're both such hardcore [SPEAKER_01]: racing driver family.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: If you're, I mean, you don't get too deep in the weeds on car stuff. [SPEAKER_01]: This is not that show. [SPEAKER_01]: But you're like, oh, you've got the front fenders. [SPEAKER_01]: It's sort of very separated like almost like a Morgan or something if you're familiar with those right now, which a lot of people are going what. [SPEAKER_01]: But it's just a very curvy, swoopy, almost like Dick Tracy dramatic.
[SPEAKER_01]: very just it looks more like an art project that went well then then like a car you know it's just it's the kind of thing you just can't even conceive of people making now um and because I'm sure those are all like hand hammered panels but you've got these big swoopy fenders over the front wheels and it just looks like a series of teardrops uh that are sort of like in motion you know it's a really elegant looking car.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have come across a few people who don't like the Sarah of Bugatti's, but I'm like, I don't know what to tell you, man. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: It's a very, it's a very pretty car. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's it's unbelievably pretty and and I love that you were used to word elegant because I think elegant as much as it was like built to go fast.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a very elegant looking car, especially in black and the SC in the name stood for and this is where I definitely am going to miss pronounced these because I didn't I didn't double check how to pronounce them, but sore base and compress your compressor. [SPEAKER_00]: compress you or something like that. [SPEAKER_00]: The basically means it's a supercharged car. [SPEAKER_00]: He wanted it to go even faster than other incarnations of models he was making.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it had other upgrades from from other type 57s. [SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, all that sounds better in another language. [SPEAKER_01]: And it's the most important day in description. [SPEAKER_01]: Because you're like, this is the new Toyota Blackcar, [SPEAKER_01]: Turbocharged, you really like that's the name of the car, but once it becomes what you're not, noir, SC, something, you know, it's like it becomes so interesting and not sort of absolutely boring.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like it is, absolutely, literally sad. [SPEAKER_01]: Let's maybe another language is calling it the black car in English is actually kind of fun or cool. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and in lame.
[SPEAKER_00]: It does, it always sounds lame in English, but I won't get too much in the weeds on car stuff today because this story is strange and it's own right and why is it strange and on this podcast and that's because like I mentioned earlier, it is a missing treasure, but also like any good mystery or adventure, the Nazis are involved.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the story goes that the car after it was made, and Jean Bugatti would drive it around [SPEAKER_00]: It was gifted to driver Robert Benoist for winning Lamar in 37 or 38, and it may have been also given to another driver right after that. [SPEAKER_00]: There is some debate over exactly who was driving it when, but by most accounts, Jean Bugatti drove the car most often. [SPEAKER_00]: And it was also never formally owned by anybody.
[SPEAKER_00]: So even though it may have been given to some people to drive her around, it was never like, hey, this is your car forever. [SPEAKER_00]: It was just kind of like, hey, use this every day and for a while. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so it was never registered per se.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then at Tori Bugatti, [SPEAKER_00]: was very aware that the Nazis encroaching and coming into France, he saw the writing on the wall that like, they're going to take over France, and this is not going to be good for my company. [SPEAKER_00]: It's not going to be good for my cars. [SPEAKER_00]: He was not just worried about Nazis just taking out of mobiles.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's a very prized automobiles, but he was worried about his factory being used to like make weapons or just completely destroyed and taken over. [SPEAKER_00]: So he famously hid a lot of his vehicles and some of which we've talked to you and I have talked about before on our show and other things like the 57 we've already mentioned that you get to drive in which was actually buried underground.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I was in a crypt for the duration of the war and then retrieved and then changed the answer a few times but yeah, has a really wild life to [SPEAKER_00]: absolutely. [SPEAKER_00]: And in other cars of Bugatti's were sent to a location in Bordeaux, which I saw, I think the tank was sent to Bordeaux as well. [SPEAKER_00]: And it's because they did have another, I don't know if it was a factory per se, but they had like another location in Bordeaux, not just in Malshime.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the idea was they're going to be safer in Bordeaux. [SPEAKER_00]: So a lot of these cars were loaded onto trains and sent to Bordeaux. [SPEAKER_00]: The black car was loaded onto a train on [SPEAKER_00]: Where's the date I wrote down? [SPEAKER_00]: I think it's February 18th, 1941. [SPEAKER_00]: Listeners, correct me on that. [SPEAKER_00]: Give me a little message. [SPEAKER_00]: I got that wrong. [SPEAKER_00]: That's off the top of my head.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it was February 18th, 1941. [SPEAKER_00]: Load it onto a train, sent to Bordeaux. [SPEAKER_00]: And that is the last, anyone, at least publicly, has seen the car. [SPEAKER_00]: And like I mentioned, while there's other Bugatti's that were hidden in and around Bordeaux and during the war that were since, [SPEAKER_00]: recovered the black car disappeared forever.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the only person that may have known where it was, or most about it was Atari himself, and he died in 1947 and it never passed on the information about what could or what he thought happened to the car. [SPEAKER_00]: And if found today, like I've already mentioned before, it is the most expensive car in the more world if found today. [SPEAKER_00]: No matter the condition, if it's in shit condition, it is still the most valuable car in the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: Unless Tim is like, oh no, it's gotta be, you know, for Ari from, no, that Mercedes, whatever, like aluminum or the light body kind of early SL, or whatever it was or going, I wasn't even going. [SPEAKER_01]: No, but some racing Mercedes was like, [SPEAKER_01]: 100 and something million dollars or it was crazy. [SPEAKER_01]: But if it's over 100, it's definitely in the running for most expensive car.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, all the 250 GTOs are catching up, but they're not even a hundred million dollars. [SPEAKER_00]: And so if you were presented to him with love, love, I toward new are and you could not sell it. [SPEAKER_00]: You had to like use it as a daily driver or a Pacifica Chrysler Pacifica mini which would you take? [SPEAKER_01]: Just from a reliability standpoint, storage standpoint, shorty, let me ask you about the stone go capacity and of what you're in the wire.
[SPEAKER_01]: And also the insurance cost of running a damn nine figure, well, not deep nine figure, but nine figure car. [SPEAKER_01]: Might not be too bad. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think for the kids, they would probably prefer the fun swoopy car that may or may not be able to get in and out of my gate and down the highway. [SPEAKER_01]: It's a hard sell. [SPEAKER_01]: If it's a triple black, if it's a hybrid Pacifica, it's like, forget it's not even a competition.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: And like, uh, [SPEAKER_00]: We, we would constantly make fun of Tim on the show, but he's, he's obsessive for RAs, but also Pacificas. [SPEAKER_00]: It's, it's like the most interesting, you know, combination of vehicles in the world. [SPEAKER_00]: But it also makes perfect sense. [SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of like the sport side and then the very practical side of things.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you, if you're going to put up a picture of me for this for some reason, I'll just send you the photo from the Ferrari factory. [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, for they had a Pacifica with the Ferrari badge on it. [SPEAKER_01]: for like internal like client movement and stuff like that. [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, what do you want for this car? [SPEAKER_01]: I'll find a way. [SPEAKER_01]: He's like, it's not for sale. [SPEAKER_01]: It's like, this is the one you're into.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like a black pacifico with red leather seats with just literally a Ferrari decal on the side. [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, it's the, I need the Ferrifica. [SPEAKER_01]: That's what this has for traffic. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: It's like Ferrifica. [SPEAKER_00]: It was not for traffic. [SPEAKER_00]: It was not for say that's lovely.
[SPEAKER_01]: Probably thought it was nuts because I mean, they were literally like, you know, [SPEAKER_01]: dozens and dozens of Ferrari's, I mean, we're at the factory. [SPEAKER_01]: They're all over the place and I'm like, what is that? [SPEAKER_01]: That's the one Anywho, for a rifika. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I can't I can't believe I forgot about that too. [SPEAKER_00]: That's it. [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, you do need to share that photo with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, so [SPEAKER_00]: what happened to the black car and there are multiple theories and a lot of them go into the weeds of various like identifying the number of things and confusion over that and back and forth that I'm not going to go too deep into because literally it makes my head spin but there are [SPEAKER_00]: are actually one of them could actually be the black car and there's a mistake that weren't four made.
[SPEAKER_00]: Most accounts, most people, most historians and Kariah Fishianados and collectors will say that no, there is four, and this one is missing for a variety of reasons. [SPEAKER_00]: But one of the theories just to share that is that one of the existing cars is that missing car.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the reason is is that the exact chassis number [SPEAKER_00]: kid would change essentially and so that creates confusion also records back then in car companies you and I know this they're not the best like they didn't take care of their paperwork all the time they would change numbers. [SPEAKER_00]: they would, you know, modify a car and change the number, but it was originally something else.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, swap parts constantly, like, you know, engines and, you know, substantial pieces of the car, especially race cars would just get swapped out, changed, traded, whatever, or broken and replaced, or whatever, and yeah, they may not have kept up with their handwritten notes as well as, as well as it hope.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's very much just like if you had a garage and you worked on cars and machines yourself, like they were just, they were smaller companies, [SPEAKER_00]: had hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people working, where they have to really organize the stuff. [SPEAKER_00]: It was just a very different time. [SPEAKER_00]: And anyway, so that is one of the theories.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is a recent story I came across that, love a tour noir, Survive the War and was bought by a Belgian in the 1950s. [SPEAKER_00]: However, people that have really been searching for this car have kind of run into a dead end with that. [SPEAKER_00]: So it was probably a little bit of a fake story that happened. [SPEAKER_00]: And there are a few of those out and about in the world where people are like, oh, this is it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And another theory is that it was hidden in plain sight. [SPEAKER_00]: And it was put on the train, but it was later kind of taken away from all the other Bugatti's being hidden. [SPEAKER_00]: And it was just given to an individual to store and then forgotten about. [SPEAKER_00]: And that kind of stuff does happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like there is validity to that in the car world in the classic car world, where like someone just inherits a car and it's stored somewhere and they don't know what it is or how valuable it is and they just keep it for decades and decades and decades that does happen. [SPEAKER_00]: So it could be out there and could be the most valuable barn find ever. [SPEAKER_00]: Another theory suggests that the vehicle never made it out of the factory and was actually captured by the Nazis.
[SPEAKER_00]: And obviously it's war, there's chaos, it could have gotten destroyed, it could have gotten put somewhere with some other valuables that they were stealing and taking and then forgotten about or in a warehouse that also was bombed if that had happened. [SPEAKER_00]: Or it was stolen and whoever has it knows it was stolen and that family has kept it secret ever since, which happens in the art world. [SPEAKER_00]: So you know that that could happen.
[SPEAKER_01]: enough money that a car like that, that they know is worth a huge amount, isn't worth you know, divulging. [SPEAKER_01]: That's a, it's a, it's a world scenario, but we've, and we've also seen a lot of stories of cars being scrapped for the war effort. [SPEAKER_01]: It could have been parked in a garage and somebody didn't even know and they're like, hey, metal wrapped and just rip it up and that's the end of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, there are a million ways that that goes wrong, which is why it's [SPEAKER_01]: 57G tank at the semi-on museum, but yeah, you hope it's sitting there under a tarp. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, there's a part of me that's, you know, that's thinking we should just go to France and start buying storage lockers at the options.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not sure they do that anywhere, but the United States, but just start dropping 100 euro all over, you know, rural France in the hopes that we uncover one of the most famous missing cars of all time. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that would, yeah, 85 is sitting right next to it from from James Bond still.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, the another theory is that it could have just, and this is a simple sad one, but it could have been destroyed during an air raid in one of the Bugatti factories or warehouse as was bombed during the war. [SPEAKER_00]: So if it was in there, it would be completely destroyed. [SPEAKER_00]: the reason we can't confirm that and historians can't confirm it and people spending a lot of their time and resources hunting for this car can't confirm it is because this was hidden.
[SPEAKER_00]: So even if it was in the building, they didn't keep track of it. [SPEAKER_00]: They weren't like, oh, here's a, you know, the invoice list of what is being hidden in that warehouse. [SPEAKER_01]: And there might have been three people on Earth if that, that even knew that it was there. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: And at this point, they're probably not around.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: you know they as well may have you know they may have died in all of that unfortunately so yeah the the dots to connect are very very tricky yes and i i also want to add with the with the Nazi thing too and you've come across some stories and i don't even think you're allowed to talk about uh in this in this valuable car world but if the Nazis did get a hold of it
[SPEAKER_00]: And they did sell it or give it to some sort of a aristocrat that was supporting the Nazis and then that aristocrat kind of hit away although all the goods that they got during the war to keep it from, you know, people trying to get back these things.
[SPEAKER_00]: After the war, it could very well have made its hands into some kind of owner collector in the Middle East or Asia, which is where a lot of valuable cars go and then disappear in terms of like recordkeeping and out of the eyes of the West. [SPEAKER_00]: So there is a world where that it could be out there. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it could be somewhere. [SPEAKER_01]: I think I know who I would call to ask a whole world buddy, Christopher Marinello, to get on the case.
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, there are, I mean, kind of endless possibilities. [SPEAKER_01]: It could be, [SPEAKER_01]: Also at the bottom of a lake or whatever that other other forgot he was yeah, that's right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it could have been on a ship that was crossing the Atlantic that, you know, got torpedoed or I mean, who knows it's just sadly You know, we won't know until we know or we'll continue just to not know which is a terrible sense, but you know It's like we'll just be stuck in the stasis until somebody opens the door to a barn or finds a crypt and you know a field in France and
[SPEAKER_01]: and lo and behold, there's a car in it, and then they, you know, call somebody in, and then [SPEAKER_01]: hopefully get excited that they just absolutely won the lottery. [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, but yeah, yeah, I hope we get some closure to it because it's always fun. [SPEAKER_01]: It's just like that, you know, the DB5 from James Bond, being kind of kind of gone, yeah, you hope one day, it's sort of resurfaces because it's so fun for people who enjoy cars to see these things.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, they're sort of historical, and now there's this huge story attached to it. [SPEAKER_01]: So it adds another layer of mystery. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, just like seeing that 57G tank, knowing where it's been and sort of, [SPEAKER_01]: Well, you know, what it went through, so to speak, it's incredible that it still exists.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that it, you know, still drives and, you know, Dr. Simeon was out cruising around as parking lot, and it was willing to drive me around in a light rain, no less. [SPEAKER_01]: But it's so, it's just, it's, it's really cool. [SPEAKER_01]: It's fun for people to. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: And I think you think to enjoy them. [SPEAKER_00]: That Bugatti that Tim's referencing, that we, we did a story on because it also was hidden and buried during the war.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, and one, I'd [SPEAKER_00]: a ton of races if I remember Krillamon 39. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think so, and Dr. Simione, who also has passed away, but he did Simione exist in Pennsylvania and people should go visit it. [SPEAKER_00]: It's awesome. [SPEAKER_00]: It's a bunch of very historically significant automobiles that he had that all work. [SPEAKER_00]: That was part of it as they have to work and they have to be close to original.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yep. [SPEAKER_00]: But that was his favorite card to drive was that Bugatti. [SPEAKER_00]: Out of all the cars he has, I think that was his favorite card to drive. [SPEAKER_00]: If I remember correctly, yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: So it's still an amazing piece of machinery and artwork. [SPEAKER_00]: And here, I'm going to read something. [SPEAKER_00]: This is from a few years ago on thedrive.com to quote them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it says, earlier this week, and now deleted social media post. [SPEAKER_00]: Reddit user, literally a lot of weird letters [SPEAKER_00]: published the below photos with the caption, this was found in a barn in France. [SPEAKER_00]: The entire car has been verified by historians as the love-a-twar noir, but politics has stopped it from being shown to the public just yet.
[SPEAKER_00]: The car never reached the destination it was supposed to on the train, and it had actually been kept a secret and disassembled at the house of a close friend of [SPEAKER_00]: two years after the war, he never had the chance to go back and collect the car.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there it set for decades, simply a shell with its parts and a barn that's the in quote, however, that has never been confirmed and people have likely not likely people have said, no, that's not the car from this article a few years ago. [SPEAKER_00]: The reason I wanted to share that though, even though people that know what they're talking about a lot more than me, say that no, that's not the car, is I do believe a situation
[SPEAKER_00]: I do think this car is it could very well be out there and you may come across a story like this in the future where someone's like, hey, I found this only crap and then you find out from like the grandfather's father's cousin or whatever, like, oh, well, he was friends of authorities and hit it in the barn and [SPEAKER_00]: never went back for it or whatever. [SPEAKER_00]: So I do think those kind of things can, and they do happen.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think if somebody found it, or if it did pop up, people would take notice and say something because it is such a dramatic looking car.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not like, oh, I found a... [SPEAKER_01]: you know 84 civic that had rusted away like call the newspapers it's like you know this is a very dramatic swoopy kind of almost spaceshipy looking thing that you'd be like this looks like something I should call she called a car type person who is immediately gonna make me a lowball offer and yeah I'll take it off my hands [SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's it's an amazing story and that's kind of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wish, you know, I had more information about where it could be outside of these these kind of vague theories, but so does everybody and it's still a story that's always fascinated me because of of how amazing this car is and because of other Bugatti's I forgot about the one hidden in the lake by the way that's that's also an amazing story that was a bottom of a lake and found and you know just incredible things out there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, this is a real, a real treasure, and a real treasure hunt with Nazis, which you always have to love. [SPEAKER_00]: And I did, like I mentioned earlier, Peter Mullen, who owns, or his, I would say his estate, I guess, owns one of them, or I think still owns one of the existing Bugatti's. [SPEAKER_00]: And I got to speak to him, I don't know, four years ago, or whatever it was. [SPEAKER_00]: And I can't remember what his theories were on this car.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think he was along the lines of what I'm saying, which is he thinks it still could be out there. [SPEAKER_00]: But my memory could be a little weird because we talked for maybe an hour and talked about a lot of things because we were hoping to go actually film the existing one he had at his museum at the time, again, pre-COVID.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, but I see, so I can't remember specifically what he said, but he, he knows, you know, all the owners of the existing ones and the paperwork and the VIN numbers and he knew all that information that I get very confused by because it does get rarely sort of chaotic and it's mess, but he, he's done all the research, so he knows all of it, like the back of his hand, um, and yeah, but I, if I remember correctly, I think he thinks it's still out there and we could very well find it one day.
[SPEAKER_00]: Which would be, I think that's possible. [SPEAKER_00]: Amazing. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: Even under good circumstances with companies like Ford that have, you know, great records, it's still hard to find cars that are, you know, much newer. [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, our hidden away somewhere, but it's as a difficult one, but hopefully there's a fun break in the case in our lifetime.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and a couple years ago too, I remember reading that France was putting together basically like a modern day monument's men, which was the group of soldiers that were going out to protect artwork that was stolen from the Nazis. [SPEAKER_00]: And so they had like a modern version of that they were organizing.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I do know that there were people that were literally planning to go and look for things like this and other artwork and statues and records and all that kind of stuff that had been stolen and lost during the war. [SPEAKER_00]: Because that's still a real thing. [SPEAKER_00]: By the way, there's still bombs from like unexplored, unexplored ordinances from World War I in Europe where there's areas you can't go to. [SPEAKER_00]: And that's now over 100 years ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, yeah, it's pretty fascinating. [SPEAKER_00]: What can happen? [SPEAKER_01]: So don't go poking around too much. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: Be careful. [SPEAKER_01]: Where you dig. [SPEAKER_01]: Don't go wheelie nilly. [SPEAKER_01]: The French country side sticking, you know, shovels into the ground. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: So that is, that's our story. [SPEAKER_00]: This is a relatively short episode.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had, we had a, I had a scheduling conflict with another guest. [SPEAKER_00]: So I had to do something kind of short and sweet. [SPEAKER_01]: I wasn't your first choice. [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you. [SPEAKER_00]: You're never in my first life. [SPEAKER_01]: I always, always top 20 somewhere. [SPEAKER_01]: 19 people canceled on you. [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe I shouldn't have done this. [SPEAKER_01]: This is bad for my career. [SPEAKER_00]: It's probably it's probably great for your career.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's great. [SPEAKER_00]: No, it's just fun. [SPEAKER_00]: But thank you for, thank you for taking the time to do it. [SPEAKER_00]: We're both supposed to see this week and I really appreciate doing it. [SPEAKER_00]: It's fun to talk about cars again with you. [SPEAKER_00]: in some sort of entertainment capacity. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: And still get to mention Pacifica's and Paris, which we can't, we can't work for Ari and several times. [SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_00]: It happens naturally. [SPEAKER_00]: There's no way you can't do it. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: Do you want to, I don't know if you do want to promote anything, do you want people to know anything about you other than you're just very tall? [SPEAKER_01]: Other than I think you should go test drive a Pacifica. [SPEAKER_01]: I think you're really going to enjoy it. [SPEAKER_01]: If you need this space, like I do, I've got three kids. [SPEAKER_01]: It's pretty great.
[SPEAKER_01]: I will say my wife is not the biggest fan of it, and as she is the one driving it, 95% of the time. [SPEAKER_01]: But it's also like, we live in the valley. [SPEAKER_01]: It's hot. [SPEAKER_01]: I opted for triple black. [SPEAKER_01]: So it's a warm car. [SPEAKER_01]: But this space is great. [SPEAKER_01]: We've done drives up to Yosemite and all that. [SPEAKER_00]: And are you, are you an affiliate marketer for Chrysler? [SPEAKER_00]: No, I don't think it's a good link.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, so just go to Chrysler.com backslash. [SPEAKER_00]: Tim Donahue, we don't have 20% off. [SPEAKER_01]: You get 20% off your Pacifico, which would actually be pretty meaningful. [SPEAKER_01]: But, no, no, no, no, that's really about it. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, nice. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, just go buy a Pacifico. [SPEAKER_01]: And I'll smile a little one more star on the sky when that every time that happens. [SPEAKER_01]: All right, well, thank you so much, Tim.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll talk to you soon. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, sounds good. [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks, Wayne. [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for listening to a study of strange. [SPEAKER_00]: We will have a brand new episode next week. [SPEAKER_00]: In the meantime, we have an exclusive episode for our sub-stacks supporters about the recent string of missing scientists, or I should say missing and or deceased, the story that's been making the rounds that even the White House commented on recently.
[SPEAKER_00]: I covered that in detail, you can find out more information about how to join through the support tab on our website, a study of strange. [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you again and stay strange.