One of the most well-known Bugattis ever spent 70 years at the bottom of a lake

This is a 1925 Bugatti Brescia Type 22, possibly one of the most well-known Bugattis of all time.

The most unbelievable part about this story is that the car spent a significant portion of its life underwater.

It ended up in a lake and, still today, people aren’t exactly sure how or why.

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The Brescia Type 22 spent at least 70 years submerged under the waters of Lake Maggiore, a lake that Italy shares with Switzerland.

While no one has been able to establish a reason, there are two theories.

For once, we’re not talking about insurance fraud, which is the reason why a Nissan 300ZX ended up underwater for example, but something very adjacent to that: tax fraud.

The first theory

According to the first theory, this Bugatti used to belong to a Swiss architect who bought the car in Paris but didn’t want to pay import taxes on it once he got back to Switzerland.

The Swiss police didn’t let him into the country with the car, so he did a 180-degree turn and drove around until he found a suitable spot to hide it.

He apparently did that by leaving the car tethered to a chain, which then snapped, causing the car to sink to the lake’s bottom.

The second theory

The second theory involves a game of poker.

Legend has it that French race car driver René Dreyfus lost the car during a game of poker but the winner, Adalbert Bodé, didn’t have the necessary funds to to clear the car through customs.

The Swiss police then confiscated the car and the law said they had to destroy it, but they didn’t want to do that.

Instead, they decided to hide the car underwater for a spell, once again tethered to a chain, and then get it back after a while, hoping everyone else would’ve forgotten all about it by then.

But, alas, the chain broke and the car was gone.

The value of this Bugatti today

It is quite difficult to determine the value of this Bugatti today because we don’t have recent data on that front.

In January 2010, the car sold for $364,700.

But that’s 14 years ago, and these days $300,000+ is what you need to get the Mustang GTD, for example, which is the most powerful Ford Mustang in history, but also the most outrageously expensive.

These days, $364k wouldn’t be enough, and this Bugatti would probably fetch at least seven figures at auction.

The car was owned by the Mullin Automotive Museum, but the museum closed down in February 2024, and we still don’t know what happened to the car.

Hopefully it’ll resurface – pun completely intended – soon.