Remember the $1 Million Bugatti Veyron Killed by a Pelican? It’s Back, Baby
Many moons ago, Andy House bought a 2006 Bugatti Veyron in October 2009, a fine time for supercars. House was doing some shady things at the time and ended up dumping the Veyron in the lake and blaming it on the pelican. But the story does not end there. It didn’t end when House went to federal prison, either.
The pelican didn’t actually kill the Bugatti Veyron
The story goes that House purchased the 2006 Bugatti Veyron for his personal salvage yard. He used to buy random wrecked exotics, fix the vehicles up, and sell for a lot of cash. But when House bought this Veyron, he insured it for $2 million as a “collector’s item.” House then used the Veyron for personal errands and showing off to his friends (not a collector’s item).
One day on a drive, House essentially just drove the Veyron into a lake. Local news station KTRE reported on the event. He claimed a “low flying pelican” came out of nowhere and caused him to crash the supercar into a lake. House left Veyron running for 15 minutes while it was in the water. He claimed mosquitos were attacking him, but the video shows no attempt at braking, stopping, or pelican-avoiding.
Unfortunately for House, but fortunately for the reputation of pelicans, first-hand accounts of what actually happened that day exist. Unbeknownst to him, someone was filming that 2006 Bugatti Veyron that day, probably because it was an exotic thing to see in La Marque, Texas.
Where is the 2006 Bugatti Veyron now?
Long story short: there was no pelican in the footage filmed of the Bugatti Veyron driving into the lake. House was sued by his insurance company and was sent to federal prison back in 2015. The pelican was released of any liability as he was not able to be found. But the Veyron is back, baby. The car has been in and out of random mechanics’ hands for years.
Back in 2019, Andy House himself actually listed the Bugatti Veyron for sale for $300,000 in pieces. “Clean title, clean CarFax, but man, does it come with a story. Car is currently disassembled and is not running or driving, comes in pieces.” You can see the ad in the VINwiki video below.
Eventually, Houston of Royalty Exotic Cars bought the Veyron in a million pieces. The supercar is obviously in terrible shape, and if anyone can piece it back together, it is probably one of these guys. However, Bugatti isn’t exactly helpful with providing parts to cars that people have destroyed.
Long story story…it’s alive
Once the Bugatti Veyron was actually back in the Royalty Exotic Cars shop, it has taken almost a year to get it back to drivable shape. Since the shop is known for having exotic parts on hand, the buyer that purchased the vehicle back in 2019 wanted to buy parts from the company. That deal ended up costing about $150,000 for whatever parts were needed at the time.
Eventually, the owner wanted to sell the Bugatti Veyron to get rid of it. Houston of Royalty Exotic Cars agreed to buy it for $400,000 and went to arrange to ship it. Once it arrived at the shop in Vegas, the car clearly needed a lot of work. He spent over $200,000 on parts from Bugatti, once Bugatti allowed him to purchase parts.
The 2006 Bugatti Veyron is slowly being pieced back together at a shop in Vegas as we speak. The amount that has been spent on the vehicle is obviously around the price of buying a Bugatti Veyron new at this point. The Bugatti Veyron has been repainted purple and is a project car for the Royalty Rebuilds YouTube channel. So, after all of the drama, jail time, and hundreds of thousands of dollars, the 2006 Bugatti Veyron is slowly coming back to life. How long will this take? Well, it has been 11 years now, so what’s one more?
