Pebble Beach 2008: Talbot-Lago sells for $4.4 million

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Its time on the block came and went. The early lively bidding in Bonhams & Butterfields tent dwindled quickly to just two bidders — one present, one on the phone. Wham! Sold, for $4.4 million. Applause. The crowd turned its attention to a dark green 1962 Citroen 2CV. The auction tenders then pushed the Talbot-Lago 150 CSS with Pourtout body work, a real Ecurie Nice race car shrouded in the body of an elegant sports car, out of the tent and — unceremoniously, I think — into the sun.

A few minutes later, Betty Locke (pictured with the car) came out to say goodbye — though she might deny being particularly sentimental. Locke’s late husband, Lindley, was a keen collector of Talbot-Lagos, and when he died in 2001, he left her with five of them. One, with astounding Figoni & Falaschi coachwork, she donated to the Nethercutt Collection and Museum in Sylmar. ‘That was my favorite,’ the diminutive lady in the straw hat said. ‘That was our first one.’

The couple, who met as undergrads at UCLA, loved Talbots. ‘They were fun to drive, fast cars,’ Locke said. And she loves driving. Locke still logs thousands of miles a year in her 1977 VW Beetle. She still has her first car, a 1938 Cadillac Opera Coupe.

This car sat more or less undisturbed in the Lockes’ garage since 1962, which makes it one of those extraordinary ‘barn finds’ with original patina that are so prized in the collecting world. One reason the Talbot is such a find is that it can be a double winner at Pebble Beach — first in the unrestored original class and then, with a few thousand hours of meticulous restoration, as a contender for the Concours ‘Best in Show’ title.

Of the remaining Talbots, Locke said, she would like to get one or two back on the road, to sell or perhaps show them. What would her husband say about the auction today? ‘I don’t know that he would have wanted to let it go,’ Locke said.

She then posed beside the car for her friend. ‘I think I might use the picture as my Christmas card.’

— Dan Neil

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