Valued at $25,000, every bit of exposed metal, inside and out, was gold plated—the bumpers, grill, door handles, trim, switches, wheels, tire valve screws, ash trays, mascot, even the exhaust pipe. The body was “hand-finished” in white while the interior was trimmed in white “English glove leather.” Veneers were walnut and two occasional tables were fitted for the rear occupants.
Debuting at the New York Auto Show, the car was accompanied by an armed guard from the Burns Detective Agency and Ms. Dorothy McDonough who was dressed to match the car—”in a specially designed gown of 24-karat gold thread, 24-karat gold hose, gold shoes (gold garters), gold and precious gem jewelry including a tiara given to Empress Josephine in 1804 by Napoleon.” The tiara, which was on loan from Van Kleef and Arpels, contained over 1,000 diamonds.
The car was a smash hit and while the press release stated that there had been several offers to buy the car, after it was shown it was sent back to the factory, stripped of its gold, retrimmed and sold as a standard road car.
https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/24143/lot/110/ sold for only 22 thou, as no one is that interested in driving this around.
So that's a repop. When they sent the original back to the factory I'd assume they replaced all the gold plated metal pieces rather than stripping the gold off them because that would be crazy expensive to restore to the stock finish. Cheaper to trash them after the gold was stripped off. A couple of the small pieces may have ended up in some executives drawer as souvenirs.
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