Someone claimed to have found a lost Bugatti worth over $100M, but the truth was just as interesting

A man thought he had made a $100 million barn find after finding a long-lost Bugatti, but it turned out that it could be a different vehicle with an interesting history all of its own.

A Bugatti Type 57 Atlantic – dubbed ‘La Voiture Noire’ – is one of just four ever made.

Produced during the 1930s, the Type 57 Atlantic has been missing since World War II – the other three have all been accounted for.

Due to its rarity, the La Voiture Noire is estimated to be worth around $100 million today, assuming it even still exists.

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Someone claimed to have found the long-lost Bugatti

Super-rare cars turn up in barn finds fairly regularly – one lucky car-lover managed to find a one-of-eight Ultima Sports that had been abandoned for more than a decade, while this 100-year-old vehicle was discovered in an old outbuilding.

But when a Reddit user claimed to have found the almost-mythical lost Bugatti La Voiture Noire back in 2021, it whipped car fanatics into a bit of a frenzy.

In the post, which was swiftly deleted, the Reddit user shared snaps that he claimed were parts of the car that had been missing for more than 80 years.

But it didn’t take long before the claims were put to bed, with people pointing out that the car in the photos had the wrong type of engine to be the La Voiture Noire, while others noted the chassis was also different. 

Amongst those shooting down the claims was Sandy Leith from the Bugatti Trust who told Jalopnik that the ‘Atlantic coachwork is sitting on a standard T57 chassis, which would not have been correct’.

So that’s that, then.

It turns out it might be an equally rare vehicle

Except it turns out the car could have an interesting backstory all of its own.

An anonymous source, who claimed to have seen the car parts in real life, told The Drive that he was certain it was what was left of the original 1935 Bugatti Type 57 Aérolithe prototype.

Much like the La Voiture Noire, what became of the Aérolithe has been an enduring mystery, with no one sure of its whereabouts since 1935.

The unnamed source told The Drive that the chassis in the images was what was left of Aérolithe – although did say ‘the original body is gone’.

The source claimed the car had once belonged to a French movie producer who later sold it on to an American mechanic, which explained how it ended up in the US.

With the original post long-deleted, there’s no way to verify these claims and the whole thing is a bit of a long shot – but stranger things have happened, right?