The six Bugatti Royale at Pebble Beach

In the run-up to the Pebble Beach event in August 1985, two French Bugatti Royales were preparing to cross the Atlantic to California. These two cars, owned by a French collector, were scheduled to be displayed at the prestigious Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance, one of the most prominent events in the world of classic cars.

At 6.4 meters long and with an inline 8-cylinder engine with a displacement of 12 liters, the Bugatti Royale is an imposing presence. From a technical and stylistic point of view, the Royale, opulently equipped and custom-made according to the instructions of its buyers, surpassed its task with great ease. However, its launch in 1929 coincided with the global economic recession and its exorbitant price meant that only six units were manufactured.

Miraculously, the six units manufactured have survived to this day, although they are distributed on both sides of the Atlantic, with four in the United States and two in France. At first glance, it might seem that gathering just six cars wouldn't be that complicated. But the reality is that it was an arduous task, especially when special transportation and international diplomatic agreements were required.

Most of the cars were in the United States, so collecting four of them wasn't that difficult. Two of the Royales came from the private collection of William F. Harrah in Reno, Arizona, one from the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, and another from the collection of former pilot and yachtsman Briggs Cunningham.

The two remaining Bugatti Royales, the Type 41 Park Ward and the Type 41 Coupé Napoléon, were located in France, specifically in the famous La Cité de l'Automobile museum in Mulhouse, a must-see place with more than 560 cars on display. This museum was created after the scandal of the Schlumpf brothers, who took advantage of part of the private collection of Hans and Fritz Schlumpf. However, bringing these two cars together was a bigger challenge.

The Schlumpf brothers had created a textile empire in Alsace before World War II. However, like the European textile industry in general, its factories went into crisis in the 1970s and had to close, leaving 3,000 people without direct work.

In the early morning of March 7, 1977, a small group of company workers entered one of the factory's remote warehouses as if they were a commando. Their objective was to find machinery and fabrics, company assets that they would use to obtain compensation for their dismissal. But they found a surprise: hundreds and hundreds of classic pre-war cars, including the two Bugatti Royales.

The news spread quickly, and the police intervened to prevent the workers from taking the cars. The Schlumpfs had never hidden that they had a large private collection, but it was the first time anyone had seen the cars gathered in one place.

The police seized the cars and moved the most valuable ones to the nearest museum, La Cité de l'Automobile, while the Schlumpfs tried to recover them through judicial means. The lengthy legal battle that followed eventually led to the museum taking the collection, and the Schlumpf brothers were declared bankrupt.

The idea of collecting the six Bugatti Royales came from Chris Bock, then a member of the organization and the president of the jury at Pebble Beach. In order for France to lend the two Bugatti Royales it owned, Bock and his colleagues had to convince American government officials to grant the two cars diplomatic immunity.

This diplomatic immunity guaranteed that no American local or federal judge could confiscate the cars, even as a precautionary measure, in the event that one of the Schlumpf brothers filed a lawsuit to recover them. It was the first time a car benefited from this status.

Solved? Not at all. Two such valuable pieces could not be transported on the same plane, since if something went wrong, both cars would be lost. Therefore, each Bugatti Royale was transported on a different plane.

Although concerned about possible retaliation from the Schlumpf brothers, the Mulhouse museum insisted that each car be transported separately from the airport to the Pebble Beach site. They were not allowed to go in the same truck, but each one had their own transportation. It is even speculated that each truck followed a different route.

Transportation as a whole cost approximately 85,000 euros in 1985, and was paid for by collectors, contest judges, officials and friends of the event. Such was the excitement at seeing the legendary Bugatti models at Pebble Beach that it was worth the price.