ROME – The announcement went around the world of engines two years ago: Al Capone’s car auctioned for a million dollars. Possible? The one with which the Italian-American gangster escaped police chases? Yes, that’s it. A 1928 Cadillac Town Sedan that Sotheby’s put up for auction for the astronomical sum of one million euros. Then you know, new news takes over and nothing is known anymore, neither who had bought it nor at what amount.
Now we have the answer: none. Despite the allure of a 1930s armored car, there was no wealthy collector who wanted to spend a six-figure sum to take Capone’s car to the garage. Sign of the times? Pandemic crisis? Maybe. The fact is that now the prestigious auction house is back on the attack, offering the same car at the same price.
Specifically, it is a wonderful green Cadillac with a black roof that Capone used in his last year of freedom before ending up in prison for tax evasion. Bulletproof glass one inch thick, doors with internal steel core and, most importantly, the rear window that could be lowered to respond to the fire of any pursuers, just like in the movies.
There is also an anecdote that deserves to be told. It seems that Capone’s men had identified a mechanic capable of making these changes. At first, to test its reliability, they brought him one of the boss’s many cars for a trivial repair. Then it was Al Capone himself who came to the workshop to ask for the Cadillac’s armor plating: when the poor mechanic objected that neither he nor his assistants had ever done things like this, the gangster replied dryly: “From now on you will do them”. And so it was.
It is evident that the weight of the car with such modifications increased considerably, even if the powerful 5.6-liter V8 was able to guarantee respectable performance. In any case, Capone had little time to put her to the test, because in 1929 he was indicted for tax fraud and his criminal career came to an end.
The Cadillac sat in the garage for a long time before being sold to a family of circus performers who got a lot of money out of it by showing it around the United States. After falling into the hands of an English collector, she returned to her homeland in the late 1940s. In the following decade it was stripped of its armor and in 2012 it was auctioned for 341 thousand dollars. After the flop two years ago, the Celebrity Cars dealership in Las Vegas will now take care of its sale again. From the series: try again, you will be luckier.