For the locals around Lake Maggiore on the Italian-Swiss border, the mythology surrounding the Bugatti in the Lake was well known. This particular 1925 Bugatti Type 22 Brescia Roadster used to belong to Golden Age of Grand Prix driver René Dreyfus, who lost it in a drunken poker game to Swiss playboy Adalbert Bodé in Paris in 1934; Bodé soon left for home with his new machine, but with no cash in pocket, he was unable to pay its import duties when he was stopped at the Swiss border. Bodé walked away, leaving Swiss officials to dispose of his prize however they saw fit. In those days, a ten-year-old Bugatti wasn't of significant value, so officials chose to roll it into the lake; its eventual resting spot was 173 feet below the surface of the water.

Yet it wasn't until the summer of 1967, when deep-diving technology was able to overcome the 29 fathoms of water pressure, that the Bugatti tale ceased to be a myth; a local diving club was able to see it for the first time. For more than four decades, amateur divers plunged the depths of the lake to catch a glimpse. Hey, if Nantucket can have the Andrea Doria, why can't Lake Maggiore have its own Bugatti?

An unforeseen, unconnected event led to its eventual exhumation and sale. In 2008, a local boy was killed at a street fair, a victim of a brutal, random beating; the local diving club elected to raise the long-sunken Bugatti and donate the proceeds to a non-profit foundation established in the victim's name to combat youth violence. A crowd of thousands witnessed the long-sunk Type 22 emerge from Lake Maggiore on July 12, 2009.

(Famously, there was still air in the remaining Englebert tires as it was raised to the surface.) The half of the car that retains its body and tires rested in the silt at the bottom of the lake for decades; the remainder, exposed to the lake, is a solemn reminder of the effects of the elements. Suitably prepped, it sold for around $370,000 at the Bonhams auction at Retromobile in Paris in January 2010; the buyer was Peter Mullin, he of the Mullin Automotive Museum in Oxnard, California.

Today, the Bugatti is displayed in its own room, walled off from the rest of the collection; the space is designed to invoke intimacy, and to roughly replicate the (minimal) light levels available at the bottom of the lake. All the better to help a viewer concentrate on the endless details that make the Brescia a must-see work of art.

Art is open to interpretation, and art is designed to make you think and feel. The Brescia scores on all counts. "This is a car that's had many different lives," says museum curator Andrew Reilly. "Here's a twin-plug competition car, rebodied to carry its current torpedo body. It's known to have belonged to René Dreyfus, then lost in a card game in Paris. It was pushed into the lake, it became a part of local lore, it became a tourist attraction. Depending on what part of its lifespan you focus on, you come away with a different appreciation. If the focus is on the young man who lost his life, it's a somber part of the story. The faded grandeur of great pre-war cars suffering certain indignities is another. The watery crypt and silence and darkness this car survived in lends itself to another solemn experience."

Yet surely its very survival is an occasion for joy?

The Mullin Automotive Museum is open to the public by appointment only; reservations and scheduling are available atwww.mullinautomotivemuseum.com

Web Extra For more on the remarkable steps and consideration the Mullin Automotive Museum is taking to preserve this 1925 Bugatti Type 22 Brescia, surf over to www.hemmings.com/editorial/lakebugatti.