Hispano-Suiza H6C Dubonnet Xenia, Silver

André Dubonnet raced for Bugatti and Hispano-Suiza in the 1920s and devised his own independent suspension, the système Dubonnet. In 1938 Hispano-Suiza built him a one-off car at Bois-Colombes, with the 7,983 cc straight-six of the H6C, a four-speed gearbox and his coil-spring suspension at all four wheels. The aerodynamicist Jean Édouard Andreau drew the shape and Saoutchik built the body. Dubonnet named it after his second wife, Xenia Howard-Johnston, who had died in 1936. It has rear-hinged pantograph doors, one of the first compound-curved wraparound windscreens and skirts over nearly all of the rear wheels. Hidden during the war, it led the parade that opened the Saint-Cloud tunnel on 9 June 1946, and it now belongs to the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles.

The model is finished in silver from the pointed nose to the teardrop tail. Vertical chrome bars fill the grille between two yellow headlamps, chrome louvres run along the bonnet sides, and the front wheels wear ribbed discs. The skirts close over the rear wheels, and the tail carries the number plate 5595 JS78. The car sits on a cobblestone base whose black plaque reads 1938, Dubonnet Hispano-Suiza H6C Xenia, of 1,002 pieces. Minichamps builds it at 1:18.