In 2009, a custom-made car, a Bugatti type 22 Brescia Roadster, was recovered from the bottom of Lake Maggiore, near France, on the border between Italy and Switzerland. It seems to have been there since 1935, but the story behind the car is even more fascinating.
Although the vehicle was built in Brescia, Italy, it was originally registered in Nancy, France. A plaque on the car said, “George Nielly, Nollet Street no. 48 Paris ”, and it seems that Mr. Nielly was the real owner, first, at least. This car will have a complicated little destiny…
But at some point, it would seem that the car changed the owner, although the exact time is not known. According to a legend, René Dreyfus, a racing champion, was playing drunk poker when he lost a similar vehicle, which he won to Adalbert Bodé, a Swiss playboy, and it all happened around 1934. Now it is believed that this is the same car.
Another story says that the car entered the hands of a Swiss architect, Marco “Max” Schmuklerski, but it was confiscated when he neglected to pay the taxes he owed to the state because he imported it.
All good and interesting, but how did it get in the lake ?? Nobody knows what happened to the car, but then it appeared in 1967, when it was discovered by the diver Ugo Pillon. Since then it has become a favorite location for divers, they went down to the lake to visit it, but there was an important reason why it was brought to the surface.
On February 1, 2008, a young man named Damiano Tamagni was beaten to death by three people. The community decided that if they took the legendary Bugatti out of the lake they could sell it to raise money for a charity event in Damiano’s name, as well as to lay the foundations of a foundation that would also have his name. The fight against violence against children.
The car was, for these reasons, recovered in 2009, and was sold to Peter Mullin, who has a museum named after him, a museum dedicated to cars, for the beautiful sum of 370,000 dollars.
Following the action of water and time on it, now the car looks like a work of art.
