|
Post by Chips on Jan 2, 2009 21:35:45 GMT 9.5
To my nephew and niece I leave.. my garage..oh, and a £6m Bugatti By Lucy Thornton 2/01/2009 Eccentric Harry Carr was nicknamed the Mad Doctor as he tinkered with the old motors he loved. Local children used to laugh at him because he wore a piece of inner tube on his head to stop the oil getting in his hair. And after he died at 89, relatives weren't too thrilled when he left them his run-down garage - until they discovered it contained the world's most expensive car... said by experts to be worth up to £6MILLION. Now his delighted nephew and niece are set to share in a massive windfall as the 1937 Bugatti Type 57S Atalante - one of only 17 ever made - goes up for auction. Former Army doctor Harry - a compulsive hoarder who never married and had no children - bought it for £895 in 1955. He left it to gather dust in his garage at Gosforth, Newcastle, after the tax disc expired in 1960. "It's a wonderful legacy," said his engineer nephew, who does not wish to be named. "Harry was an amazing, lovely man. But because he kept himself to himself not many people knew what a clever and generous person he was. "It was a bit of folklore that he had a Bugatti, but no one knew for sure - and certainly no one knew how much it was worth." A total of eight relatives will share the inheritance, including Harry's sister and three nephews in Australia. A spokesman for Bonhams, who are handling the auction in Paris, said: "It's a spectacular discovery - this is one of the most important cars in the world."
|
|
|
Post by thelion on Jan 2, 2009 23:50:37 GMT 9.5
Im in lust
|
|
|
Post by sharon on Jan 3, 2009 3:11:45 GMT 9.5
It's amazing how he suddenly becomes the above after they have found out about the £6million car
|
|
|
Post by wvpeach1963 on Jan 3, 2009 3:39:11 GMT 9.5
Well in all fairness I have known a couple of these eccentric old buggers. They are not always easy to deal with.
One comes to mind a old gentlemen that I was asked to visit because he had gotten so old and was doing such odd things his neighbors had called the authorities on him a time or two.
It took several visits before he trusted me enough to let me start to hang around. And trust would be the wrong word really. It also took me raising my voice to be heard over one of his rants and telling him .................... you know if you don't talk to me the judge might and will pull you in have you thrown in the looney bin and evaluated to see if its safe for you to live alone anymore.
Once I got that across loud and clear he grudgingly set it in his mind better me than the courts and a looney bin.
This old gentlemen in his late 80's had lived in the same home for many years, 60 plus years if memory serves me. Was a retired railroad engineer. When he had moved to the home he had space , it was in a small town , but at most he had two neighbors in eye sight of his home. Slowly over the years homes had been built all around him. His large lot for a city, was now all that stood between him and the rest of the world.
The things he used to do when his home was off to itself and private now were seen by new neighbors as rather odd.
In the old days nobody thought anything of him rescuing his favorite cat from a stray dog wandering through his yard in his robe with it untied and flowing free ,naked. Now with neighbors and children all around the sight of a old man with a open robe chasing a stray dog from his yard was shocking. ...............LOL
Over a couple of months and with much patience and a little yelling I was able to get across to him that he should tie his robe before venturing outside now as he wouldn't want to shock the neighborhood children and send them home in tears. He laughed and said , wouldn't want to permanently traumatize the little hellions would I? Guess the world doesn't want children knowing just how cruel old age can be to a mans body.
I was able to convince him that if the cat climbed the curtains and they fell down it was best to put them up again if as he said it was his God given right to make a bathroom trip in the middle of the night naked without the world peering in his windows. Here I had a eccentric on my hands who meant nobody any harm , he just didn't like the changes that were taking place around his own private world. Being that people were moving around him and he found that a bother and intrusion on his privacy. Neighbors were worried that he was a old pervert. Nothing further from the truth about him. he wasn't a pervert he valued his privacy , didn't appreciate or consider that people should even be looking at his home. So why would they see what he was doing. Took some convincing to get him to see that children are a curious lot and his run down old home was becoming the scary house on the street the children were happy to scare each other with tales about. He got a good deal of joy from that thought. Good let the little hellions be scared of my home and me he said I don't want them near it. Possibly the happiest I ever saw him when he knew that he was scary to the local children. Got a big old grin on his face.
He meant them no harm , just wanted them to leave him and his alone.
The real irony of this story is since he was all alone in the world ,having never married and long since losing touch with any family he might have had . A time came when he had a stroke and was unable to care for himself at home . I was made his power of attorney and much to my surprise this old fellow had a couple million in the bank. He'd been depositing his wages untouched pretty much for decades and the money had really built up.
The nursing home ate up a lot of it before he died. But I was able to help him make a will leaving his home , that was really a shack to be torn down and his three acres as a park for his neighborhood with the rest of his money left as a annuity to care for the park into the future.
LOl he was quite pleased with that suggestion and eagerly pushed me to get that paperwork done. He was happy even though I pointed out to him strangers would be walking all over his place . At least he said nobody will build more houses on it. Get it done.
So I am well familiar with eccentrics , I have met and could tell you about quite a few. Normally they are a bother, but like peeling a onion if your willing to go slow in peeling the layers often you find a pearl onion waiting for you in the middle . A jewel in the rough so to speak, but don't expect to always be able to polish that jewel some of them like being rusty and dusty its their way.
|
|
|
Post by Chips on Jan 3, 2009 3:45:17 GMT 9.5
Great story Peach.
I can imagine it all happening as you describe it.
|
|