There are car auctions, and then there are car auctions, and the upcoming auction at the Larz Anderson Auto Museum in Brookline, Mass., featuring vehicles from the The Frank Cooke Collection, is of the sort that makes avid collectors reach for their drool cups.

Cooke (1913-2005) was an optical engineering genius who worked on projects like NASA's Galileo probe and the Hubble telescope. His love of all things mechanical -- and especially his love of cars -- led him to create the legendary Vintage Garage at North Brookfield, "a true Aladdin's Cave reflecting the eclectic tastes of its owner," according to Malcolm Barber, CEO of the Bonhams & Butterfields auction house. On April 21, Bonhams and the Larz Anderson Museum will put on the block dozens of Mercedes-Benzes, Caddies, Pierce Arrows, Packards, Rolls-Royces (Cooke's special passion), and the show stopper -- one of the first three 1926 Type 39A supercharged Grand Prix Bugatti racing two-seaters (pictured).

As the Bonhams catalog has it: "The works team deployed by the world-famous Molsheim factory represented the creme de la creme during Bugatti's heyday in the 1920s. These cars established the halo under which Mr. Bugatti developed ingenious variations upon the basic high-performance theme to encourage enthusiastic private owners to step up to his sales counter and invest in Le Pur Sang -- 'The Pure Bloodline.' It is the works cars, driven by Bugatti's greatest drivers, upon which the Bugatti legend is based. Without doubt, it was in 1926 that Ettore Bugatti truly found his feet as a high-performance motor car manufacturer of International stature."

No doubt true, and impressive. But the real appeal of this car, and of so many others in the Cooke collection, is simply that they're sexy as hell.

The 39A is expected to fetch somewhere between $1.3 and $1.6 million, and frankly, we can't really think of too many better ways to spend a million-and-a-half bucks.

-- BEN COSGROVE