Resurfaced: 1925 Bugatti Brescia Type 22 Roadster

PARIS — A rather unusual Bugatti — if that doesn't sound just a bit redundant — will go up for auction later this month at a Bonhams sale here, with the proceeds going to a Swiss charity. What is perhaps most notable about the car, a 1925 Bugatti Brescia Type 22 Roadster, is that until last July it lay at the bottom of Lake Maggiore in Switzerland, where it was sunk 73 years earlier.

The tale, along with the car's provenance, is nicely detailed on Bonhams' web site.

This particular Brescia Type 22 carries the chassis number 2461 and the engine number 879. The car was built in 1925 and registered originally to an owner in Nancy, France, then later sold to and registered by a Parisian owner.

Eventually, Bonhams speculates, it wound up in the hands of a Swiss architect of Polish descent who reportedly never paid the import duties on the car. The local authorities in Ascona, where the car was stored in 1936, demanded either that the overdue monies be paid or the car destroyed — and so it was submerged in the lake, where it was eventually discovered by a diver in 1967.

It wasn't until 2009 that the vintage Bugatti — or what was left of it — was recovered by members of the local diving club.

Bonhams estimates that about 20 percent of the original car remains, with much of the iron and steel corroded or destroyed but such materials as wood, aluminum, brass and rubber having survived remarkably intact.

The auction house says there is no reserve on the car and projects a sale price of between $100,000 and $130,000, with the proceeds going to a local charity.

Inside Line says: You'd be hard pressed, regardless of marque, to find a vintage car with a more colorful history. — Paul Lienert, Correspondent