Roger Baillon was a French businessman who was very keen on collecting cars. He had some of the rarest cars that even after so many years and rusting, still were worth in gold. He planned to collect all the rare automobiles from the 1950s to 1970s and make a museum out of them.
Sadly, his museum idea didn't fare well due to financial constraints. But a few years ago, his forgotten car collection was uncovered. The world is covered with GPS tracks, but there are still a lot of undiscovered places that we are totally unaware of, and a lot of these places could be someone’s cache and could turn out to be a great treasure for someone else. And this bundle of hidden classic cars fared exactly that.
Updated October 2022: Roger Baillon's car collection is considered to be the most beautiful out there. His dusty and dilapidated cars were uncovered a few years ago, and collectors paid insane money to collect even the most beaten and literally "crushed" cars. We have updated this article with more insight into one of the most valued barn finds ever.
Roger Baillon's Unbelievable Barn Find
The collection packed some very rare cars. The Talbot-Lago in the collection was owned by a previous Egyptian King, and one of the Ferraris was used in a movie that starred Jane Fonda.
All these collections were for the museum, but as the plans didn’t go according to Roger, to pay the debt he had to sell 50 of his cars, and the rest were forgotten. The remaining cars were truly a treasury. The auction for the cars was held in Paris on February 6th of 2015.
1956 Maserati AG6 2000 Gran Coupe Sport Berlinetta Fura
The second most expensive car that was sold in the auction was the 1956 Maserati AG6 2000 Gran Coupe Sport Berlinetta Fura, which sold for $2,223,399 (over $2 million). Only four models of the 1956 Maserati were built and one of them was in Baillon’s collection.
A ton of documents proved that the car was original and was never touched by anyone when it comes to changing the interior and/or exterior and that just increased the price by a huge gap.
1937 Bugatti Type 57 Ventoux
The company has always been known for its attention to detail, and this model was no different. The car was very stylish and was produced for almost 6 years, from 1934 to 1940. The car had a top speed of 95 MPH and packed 135 HP.
The documentation with the car was very brief, it listed every person who had owned the car and even gave a lot about the family. This model is assumed to be the only survivor in this line-up. This Bugatti Type 57 Ventoux sold for $337,634.
Sandford Type S
Mr. Stuart Sandford built cars from 1923 to 1936 and Type S was one of them, it had a water-cooled Ruby engine that displaced 1083cc and 35 HP, the rare 3-wheel car was in Baillon’s collection. The dashboard of the car had a tachometer and clock. Until the auction in 2015, this car only had two owners. This Sandford Type S cyclecar sold for a commendable $67,527.
1961 Ferrari 250 GT SWB California Spyder
The most iconic car of the collection was considered to be the Ferrari 250 California, the car was pre-owned by a French actor named Alain Delon, and quite a few photographs of the car and the actor were published by the auction companies.
This Ferrari sold for a whopping $18,454,304 (over $18 million) setting a new auction record. The auction company in a press conference mentioned that the Ferrari was the only car that was not even touched by a person after finding the collection and every spec and dust were kept as it is.
1982 Ferrari 308 GTSi
The Ferrari 308 GTSi was a V8, two-seater sports car that was manufactured by the company from 1975 to 1985. The cars were equipped with naturally aspirated engines but later on include turbocharge engines.
The documentation with the car unfolded that the car was purchased in the year 1989 and due to some burning accident, the car needed some rework such as paint and replacement of some parts. This beat-up Ferrari sold for $37,815.
1949 Talbot-Lago T26 Grand Sport SWB
This happens to be one of the most damaged cars in the collection. One of its sides is literally crushed! The Talbot-Lago T26 Grand Sport SWB is so rare that there isn't any information available in hard or soft copy anywhere in the world. Initially estimated to bag just under $700,000; this classic car sold for more than $1.9 million!
This Barn Find Was Heaven For Collectors
The person, who had the world's largest collection of cars sadly passed away in the year 2004. The son was unaware of the inheritance, and eventually, the grandsons found out about it later. The grandson had limited knowledge about their grandfather's interests, but they never expected the collection to still be accessible.
A lot of these cars were from the late 1930s with the original paint still on, but unfortunately, a lot of these cars were not in a condition, from which they could recover. Nature had already started growing on the cars but still, they recovered and almost 897 of these cars were sold out all over the world.
Roger Baillon’s dream of making the museum never caught on, but the auctioning company said that the day before the cars went for auctioning, almost 15000 people came to see the exclusive cars.
All the cars were purchased by collectors all over the world and mostly out of France, but one of them the 1936 Panhard et Levassor Dynamic x76 Coupe Junior was taken by a museum for a sum amount of $75,604.
Source: Artcurial