Sleeper Hits

Like many geniuses, these cars were never truly appreciated in their own time, but have eventually become huge stars on the auction circuit.

- Daryl Lee

Bugatti Royale

Its official name is the Bugatti Type 41, which is a somewhat prosaic moniker for one of the most ludicrous luxury cars ever made. A far more fitting name is its unofficial one: Royale. And boy, was it a car fit for a king. It measured around 6.4m long, with a 4.3m wheelbase, and weighed approximately 3.2 tonnes. But what’s most impressive, at least from a mechanical perspective, is the motor underneath its impossibly long bonnet – one half as long as the entire car itself and topped off with an elephant ornament styled by Ettore Bugatti’s brother, Rembrandt. It was an inline-eight engine that had a displacement of 12.7 litres, and if that sounds like something that you might use to power a train, you’d be right. Several of the engines found their way onto Bugatti-engineered trains, and were, perhaps, the only thing that prevented the Royale project from being an abject failure. Yes, failure. Because despite a planned production run of 25 cars, Bugatti managed to sell to the public only three of the seven made. Six still exist today, happily. This was in no small part due to the Great Depression killing any sort of market for ultra-luxury cars such as the Royale. Today, well, good luck getting one. The last time a Royale showed up at auction was in 1987 and the gavel came down for a then-record US$9.8 million. We can only speculate on the price that a Royale could fetch today but suffice it to say, it wouldn’t be cheap.