Sale of female racing pioneer Helle Nice's '27 Bugatti brings belated appreciation

Considering the male-dominated world of the early 20th century, where women were still fighting for the right to vote, its no wonder mold-breakers such as aviator Amelia Earhart remain celebrated today. Another lesser-known woman who fits that bill is France’s Helle Nice, whose racy acrobatic exploits were topped only by her speed demon displays behind the wheel of a quicksilver 1927 Bugatti Type 35B Grand Prix that's expected to sell for $2.8 million to $3.5 million next month.

“That there hasn’t been a movie about her yet amazes me,” says David Gooding, whose auction house Gooding & Company is charged with selling Nice’s Bugatti Aug. 16 and 17, during the fabled Pebble Beach Concour d’Elegance festivities on the Monterey peninsula.

“In many ways, Nice is the automotive world’s equivalent of Earhart. Though maybe even more racy,” Gooding says with a laugh. “She was a trapeze artist, and there are photos of her in that period with hardly any clothing at all.”

Nice earned her celebrity in Paris in the roaring '20s with her dancing and modeling, but her stage career ended after a skiing accident cracked her knee. Her fervent social circle included several race drivers and Bugatti owner Jean Bugatti, who lent her machinery before she bought the 1927 outright.

Her exploits with this and other Bugatti models — which were the definitive race-ready machine of the day, the 35B being a supercharged variant putting out 130 hp out of its overhead cam straight eight — culminated in an attempt to break the top-speed record for the flying 10 miles.

She didn’t win, but impressed many with an average speed of 120 mph — this in a car whose open feel would terrify most of today’s average drivers at a mere 90 mph. (A few years back, I was fortunate enough to get a cramped shotgun ride with Jay Leno in the comedian’s vintage Bugatti and at largely legal highway speeds the experience was unforgettably vivid, thanks to low-cut doors, massive thin wheels and sound effects that conjured up a runaway train.)

Nice ran in Grand Prix races throughout the 1930s, some deemed for women only, but several against men as well. In 1936, she was running an Alfa in the Sao Paolo Grand Prix when her car struck a hay bale and catapulted into the crowd, killing several spectators and injuring dozens. Nice was thought to have died as well, but she had landed on a victim whose body protected hers. Nice was in a coma for two days and hospitalized for two months; her racing and survival made her famous in South America, where mothers named their daughters "Hellenice" in her honor.

And much like Earhart, Nice story had a tragic ending. After World War II, as she tried to restart her racing career, Nice was wrongly accused of having been a Gestapo agent in occupied France. The charge was baseless, but it cost Nice her friends and popular support nevertheless. She would eventually die peniless and alone in 1984, all but forgotten by the racing world.

It was her Bugatti that helped bring her story back. Nice’s Bugatti has traded hands a number of times over the years, “but unlike many Grand Prix Bugattis, a good number of which were driven into the ground with swapped engines and coachwork, this one hasn’t led that hard a life,” says Gooding.

In fact, it has been restored a number of times in the past few decades, the latest effort bringing period-correct body panels as well as a return to the car’s original taupe-ish livery, as opposed to a more typical French racing blue.

“The car has been to a number of Bugatti shows around the U.S., so it’s more than ready to be driven regularly,” says Gooding. “It’s extremely fast and would be a terrific vintage racing car. That said, it’ll be interesting to see what the next owner does with her. While she’s a phenomenal car to drive she is by now an acknowledged and wonderful museum piece.”

One that comes with an unmatchable story.