The collection belonged to Roger Baillon, a French industrialist who began assembling it in the late 1940s and 1950s during France's postwar industrial recovery. At the height of his success, Baillon dreamed of preserving the world's finest pre-war automobiles and restoring them for display in a public museum so others could admire their beauty and history. His transport company became one of the largest in France and formed the basis of his wealth, enabling him to build up one of the most exclusive car collections.
Motivated not by profit but by deep admiration for automotive design and craftsmanship, Baillon bought many vehicles from scrapyards and liquidation sales, often at extremely low prices, with the explicit goal of saving them from destruction. The collection grew to include iconic marques such as Bugatti, Delahaye, Talbot Lago, Delage, Ferrari, and Maserati, many of which were rare coachbuilt examples. At its peak, more than 100 cars filled the property.
When Baillon's companies were struggling in the 1970s, banks forced him to liquidate his impressive car collection. While he sold off some cars in 1979 and in 1985, there were still 110 cars left in the collection. When his plans for a museum fell through, he began to sell his cars, but few would have guessed that he would have kept hold of the best. The remainder sat in barns and sheds with corrugated iron roofs, slowly returning to the earth.
Roger Baillon passed away in 2004 and his son, Jacques Baillon, who inherited the collection, was either unaware of all of the cars or just had no interest in them. Jacques maintained the remaining collection, albeit in secrecy, preserving the vehicles in their original state. Ten years later, Jacques also passed away and Roger's grandchildren would inherit the forgotten car collection.
When the grandsons saw the cars, they were in complete shock and had no idea the collection still existed. With no knowledge of what the cars were worth, they contacted experts at Artcurial Motorcars and asked them to perform a valuation. The assessors showed up and were quickly in a greater state of shock than even the grandsons had been, finding vehicles they'd only ever heard about and never seen.
Pierre Novikoff, a senior specialist at Artcurial, described it as somewhere between a metallic graveyard and a museum, with nature having taken hold over the years as ivy invaded cars and entirely covered wheels while weeds had taken root in passenger compartments. What they discovered included a 1961 Ferrari 250 GT SWB California Spyder that had been exhibited at the Paris Motor Show in 1961 and existed as a rumor among a very small circle of people for decades. The car had been used in filming with Jane Fonda and joined Jacques Baillon's collection in November 1971.
The grandsons admitted to having limited knowledge of the cars and restorations and reached the decision to sell it all. In 2015, 59 of the surviving cars were auctioned by Artcurial at the Rétromobile show in Paris. During the 11 hour, two part marathon auction, 10 different world records for auction prices were broken.
The star of the sale, the 1961 Ferrari 250 GT SWB California Spyder, brought a world record $18.5 million after a presale estimate between $10.88 million and $13.74 million. A 1956 Maserati A6G 2000 Gran Sport Berlinetta by Frua brought $2.2 million, besting its estimate of $930,000 to $1.395 million. The Maserati shared a garage with the Ferrari and was found sitting under a pile of books and magazines when the garage was opened.
Two brothers who expected forgotten belongings walked away with millions. Cars that had been slowly dissolving under ivy and rust became some of the most valuable vehicles ever sold at auction. Roger Baillon's museum never materialized, but his vision of preserving automotive history succeeded in ways he never imagined. The cars he rescued from scrapyards in the 1950s became treasures that the world would pay fortunes to own.
