In just a couple months, a breathtaking menagerie of barn finds known as the Baillon Collection will be going up for auction at Artcurial's Retromobile sale. The 60-car collection was discovered just three months ago in France (where else?) and it contains cars that even discovered alone will make collectors faint. We're talking about rides like a Ferrari 250 GT SWB California Spyder, a Bugatti Type 57 Ventoux, a Maserati A6G 2000 by Frua, and Talbot Lago T26 Saoutchik cabriolet that had at one point been the property of King Farouk of Egypt. The gallery above is just a mere taste of what will be offered on Feb. 6 at Artcurial's flagship sale in Paris.

According to The Telegraph, citing Pierre Novikoff of Artcurial, the collection was the property of a French shipping magnate who had a passion for pre-war cars.

"The discovery of these cars is actually due to a friend of the [selling] family. The crazy thing is it [the collection] was unknown by motor car specialists," Novikoff told The Telegraph.

The collection was completely unknown by those in the business until just a couple months ago.

Years ago the Baillon collection consisted of approximately 200 rare cars that the French owner amassed betwen 1953 and 1966, with the oldest car in the collection dating back to 1912 -- a Renault four-cylinder. The most modern car in the collection as it stands today is a Ferrari Mondial, which may have been his daily driver, and that we suspect will be offered with the rest of the lots. The collection's owner reportedly moved on to larger vehicles later on, such as trains, but setbacks in business forced him to sell about a hundred cars at one point. A bankruptcy in 1978 saw the collection reduced by another 100 cars, leaving the 60 intact cars that Artcurial will offer in February.

"The California is a very important car because it was unknown. Some people knew a rare Ferrari existed, but no one knew it was a California," Novikoff told The Telegraph. "The collector bought it in 1971 and it was actually the car that [French actor] Alain Delon bought in 1963. There are photographs of him in the car with Jane Fonda and Shirley Maclaine."

Altogether 60 cars fit for preservation or restoration will be offered, and another 40 will be offered for spares.

"Some cars from the 1920s and '30s still have the original paint. Many of the most interesting cars are from the 1930s, '40s and '50s, most are coachbuilt by French firms," Novikoff told The Telegraph.

Artcurial has not finished putting together a detailed list of lots with individual photos -- we expect it to be out shortly -- but they have produced a video preview of the collection that we'd like to recommend for a cinematic prize of some sort in the short foreign film category.

We'll keep you updated as information and photos about individual lots emerge in the coming weeks.

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