Word: bugattis
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Monaghan was long known more for self-indulgence than for selflessness. He amassed a gaudy mix of Bugatti autos, Frank Lloyd Wright drawings and artifacts, and a dream ranch in Ann Arbor where herds of buffalo roamed. Monaghan explained those sprees as compensation for the fact that his mother abandoned him at the age of four to foster homes and an orphanage. As owner of the Detroit Tigers, he liked to swoop down on home games in his helicopter. He once considered building a 35-story slanted tower dubbed--what else?--the Leaning Tower of Pizza...
...been experienced in similar-size cars. The result was a design as instantly recognizable and distinctive as Harley Earl's fins, one that almost overnight changed the rules in the other creative studios of Detroit. Who would ever have thought that Chrysler would be turning down a request from Bugatti to use its Viper headlamps...
There are 688 works, ranging from Deco vases to documentary photos, from tiny collages to a reconstruction of Kurt Schwitters' Merzbau, from architectural drawings to a De Havilland biplane and a huge, sleek Type 41 Bugatti Royale, the ultimate dream machine of the 1920s, with sharkskin-inlaid running boards and a 12.7-liter engine, one of only six that were built before the Depression put an end to such automotive fantasies. Even the school kids, who race through the rooms of painting and sculpture, fall into an awed hush in front of this one, as their ancestors were once supposed...