Who would have thought that a car that spent more than 70 years submerged under the waters of Lake Maggiore in Switzerland would go on to become one of the most well-known Bugattis ever, even with its rusty (but somehow stunning) patina? That only prompts another question, how did the Bugatti in the Lake end up at the bottom of Lake Maggiore in the first place?
There are two conflicting stories about how the Bugatti ended up at the bottom of the lake, but they both have one main similarity; to avoid paying taxes.
Theory 1: The Architect
A guy named Marco Schmuklerski was a Zurich-born architect who lived in Ascona, Switzerland, from 1935 to 1936. Being that he studied in Paris, it’s possible that he brought the car back to Switzerland without paying any import taxes. When Schmuklerski soon left Ascona, it’s assumed he stored the car in a builder’s yard. However, the Swiss authorities still wanted their tax money, which led to the car consequently being hidden in the nearby Lake Maggiore, tethered to a chain. However, over time, the chain deteriorated and eventually broke, causing the Bugatti to sink over 150 feet to the lake’s bottom.
This story was considered very probable until the daughter of Schmuklerski was asked if this car belonged to her father, to which she responded, ‘My dad never owned a Bugatti.’
Theory 2: The Poker Game
The other, assumed-correct explanation claims that in 1934, French race car driver René Dreyfus, who came to fame racing on the Grand Prix circuit in the 1920s and 1930s, was in Paris playing a liquor-fueled game of poker with affluent Swiss playboy Adalbert Bodé. Due to a lack of cash and one too many drinks, Dreyfus bet his 10-year-old race car on a hand of poker. Which he lost. His 1925 Bugatti Brescia Type 22 now belongs to Adalbert Bodé.
When Bodé returned to Switzerland, he was stopped at the border and informed he could not bring the Bugatti with him without paying a large tax. As gamblers’ fortunes fluctuate pretty heavily, Bodé couldn’t manage to get the funds to clear the car through customs.
According to Swiss law, any confiscated merchandise must be destroyed, so, being a different time period, customs officials decided to dump the Bugatti in the nearby Lake Maggiore. But the customs officials had the clever idea that they could attach it to a chain so that when the heat died down, they could pull it out and have their own race car. However, the chain they used wasn’t strong enough and deteriorated quickly, eventually breaking. Instead of being only 35 feet underwater, hanging from a chain, the Bugatti sank to the bottom, 173 feet below the surface.
This would be its resting place from 1935 to 2009, almost 74 years.
Bringing the Bugatti to the Surface
A local dive club discovered the sunken Bugatti in the late 1960s but did not recover it for another 40 years. What sparked the recovery was actually a terrible murder. The son of one of the lead divers in the club was brutally beaten, mugged, and ultimately killed in February of 2008. They came up with a plan to recover the Bugatti, put it up for auction, and use the proceeds to fund a campaign against youth violence. Needless to say, the plan worked. When it was first brought to the surface, it was valued at around $70,000. In January of 2010, it sold at a Bonhams auction for $364,700, far more than the value of its running and driving counterparts.
Where is the Bugatti from the Lake now?
The retrieval of the Bugatti clearly sparked a lot of interest from classic car enthusiasts around the world. Peter Mullin, the founder of the Mullin Automotive Museum, has always loved French cars, especially Bugattis. After winning a bidding war with another Bugatti enthusiast from the Netherlands, Mullin took the one-of-a-kind car back to California.
Until recently, the car was on display at the Mullin Automotive Museum in Oxnard, California. However, as of February 2024, the Mullin Automotive Museum will be closing and selling off most of its collection. It’s unsure what’s going to happen to the Bugatti, but we hope it finds its way into another museum to show off its unique backstory. It will forever be one of the strangest but most intriguing pieces of automotive history.
Heard of the Blue Lake Vauxhall in south Australia?