Mullin classic cars in no-reserve sale next month

By Aaron McKay

| 19 Mar 2024

Classic & Sports Car – French marvels star in Peter Mullin sale

Gooding & Company will hold a special auction at the Mullin Automotive Museum in Oxnard, California, on 26 April, offering some of the late Peter Mullin’s collection with no reserve.

Mullin died in September 2023 and in January it was announced that it was the end of the road for his world-famous museum, which closed on 10 February.

“He no doubt will go down in history as one of this world’s greatest visionaries,” said Gooding & Company president David Gooding, “especially in the realm of French classic and Art Deco cars.”

One of the most recognisable classic cars of the collection is the 1939 Bugatti Type 57C Aravis ‘Special Cabriolet’, one of three such models built with Gangloff coachwork and the sole-remaining example.

The 1939 Bugatti Type 57C Aravis ‘Special Cabriolet’ is the sole-remaining example of this Gangloff-bodied car

Built for the Bugatti team racing driver Maurice Trintignant, the car was used in competition at the Grand Prix du Comminges in 1939.

Mullin acquired this car in 2002 and received the racing driver’s advice on the Bugatti’s restoration – it then won the Pebble Beach Concours d’Élegance in 2005.

It now heads to auction with an estimate of $2.5-3.5m.

This 1930 Bugatti Type 46 Semi-Profilée Coupé is one of the rare French classic cars being sold at the Mullin Automotive Museum in April 2024

Another Bugatti, a 1930 Type 46 Semi-Profilée Coupé, is expected to fetch $650-850,000.

Sold to a serial Bugatti-owning physician in Prague after its distinctive coachwork by Oldřich Ulik was completed in 1934, chassis 46136 was later fully restored by marque expert Barry Price.

Like the other cars in this sale, it is being offered with no reserve.

This 1930 Bugatti Type 46 Semi-Profilée Coupé is expected to achieve $650-850,000

The 1935 Hispano-Suiza J12 Cabriolet (read our story on it here) prized by Mullin since he acquired it in 1992 will be one of the sale’s highlights, with an estimate of $2.5-3.5m.

Just eight open-topped examples of this 9.4-litre luxury behemoth were built by the Parisian coachbuilder Vanvooren.

Registered to an unknown film producer in the French capital in 1937, it was exported to the USA in the 1950s, where it was owned by enthusiasts Richard Paine, founder of the Seal Cove Auto Museum, and John Mozart, who commissioned an extensive restoration.

During Mullin’s custodianship, it won the Designer’s Choice at the Concours of America and Best of Show at the Montecito Concours d’Elegance.

This 1935 Hispano-Suiza J12 Cabriolet has coachwork by Vanvooren

A Delage with a remarkably glitzy past will also be on offer.

The 1937 Delage D8-120 Three-Position Cabriolet by Chapron, expected to achieve $800,000-1m, was once appropriated by a French general of the Vichy government but, in 1946, it was sent to California and sold to RKO Studios.

It starred in the 1951 film An American in Paris, alongside Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron, and was later sold to special-effects artist Thol ‘Si’ Simonson, famous for his work on the Adventures of Superman TV show, before Mullin bought it at auction in 1987.

This 1937 Delage D8-120 Three-Position Cabriolet by Chapron is expected to fetch up to $1m

Also at the Mullin Automotive Museum on 26 April, Gooding & Company will offer cars from the Schlumpf brothers’ collection, including a 1937 Auto Union-Wanderer W25K Roadster and a brace of Bugattis.

Some other cars from the Mullin collection went under the hammer at the Amelia Island auction on 1-2 March, including a 1925 Bugatti Type 35C Grand Prix, which sold for $582,500 on a $600-800,000 estimate, a 1948 Delahaye 135MS Cabriolet that made $390,000 on a $200-300,000 estimate, and a quartet of special coachbuilt Citroën DS models, headed by the $207,200 sale of a 1965 Majesty.

The full online catalogue for the Selections From The Mullin Collection Auction will be available on the Gooding & Company website in April.

Images: Michael Furman/Mullin Automotive Museum

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