Art Deco French dream machines to cross the auction block at Villa d’Este

Filed under: Classics, Coupe, Auctions, Misc. Auto Shows

1938 Talbot-Lago T150C-SS Teardrop Coupe #90112 – Click above for high-res image gallery

The Bugatti Type 57SC Atlantic may be the most iconic of the Art Deco-era French teardrop coupes, but it isn’t the only one. Which is a good thing, because there’s only two or three of them in existence (and we had a photo session with one of them). The Talbot-Lago may not be as well known today – probably because the company’s not around anymore – but it’s arguably just as beautiful, and this one’s crossing the auction block.

This particular example – a 1938 Talbot-Lago T150C-SS Teardrop Coupe – is one of only 11 examples that featured the second-series “New York” bodywork by coachbuilders Figoni et Falaschi that made the Talbot-Lago the poster child that it is. (This writer had a purple one up on his wall as a child.) Underneath the unspeakably gorgeous sheetmetal (one of only a handful with a factory-installed sunroof) sits a shortened race-bred chassis and a 140-horsepower 4.0-liter inline-six with pre-Mopar hemispherical combustion chambers and triple carbs, along with an independent front suspension. Chassis number 90112 was the subject of a full restoration completed in-house by RM Auctions, and was decorated at both Pebble Beach in 2009 and at Meadowbrook in 2010. And we even like the color…

As if that’s not enough, there’s a 1937 Bugatti 57SC Atalante Coupe (the slightly more common – but still rare by any other standard – production counterpart to the Atlantic) also on the docket. One of just 40 examples produced, chassis 57551 was named Best of Show at Pebble Beach in 1976. The pair join the Bertone Museum collection and the Ford GT40 Roadster on which we already reported at RM Auctions’ inaugural sale on the shores of Lake Como at the prestigious Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este. Read more about the Talbot and the Bugatti in the press releases after the jump, and do be sure to check out the images in the high-res gallery below for a closer look.