Rare Horch 855 Spezial Roadster missing from Yanukovych car collection

Ukraine's president Viktor Yanukovych, now hiding in Russia, seemed to have everything imaginable and unimaginable in his car collection on the Dnieper River. Everything from a fiberglass-bodied Ford Custom Coupe based on a 1994 Ford Mustang, to an early post-war GAZ M20 Pobeda.

A couple days ago, we gave you an exclusive look at his collection in detail, showing all the vehicles that anti-Yanukovych activists and journalists saw when they made their way to the compound following Yanukovych's hasty departure for Sevastopol by helicopter. It was immediately apparent that the most valuable car in the collection might have disappeared with the fleeing president: a 1938 Horch 855 Spezial Cabriolet estimated to be worth at least $2 million.

All the cars in the collection had little information placards on stands next to them, and the placard for the Horch 855 Spezial Roadster was still there, next to a ZiL 41045 and a ZiL 41047 limousine. But the Horch was nowhere to be found.

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A Horch 855 similar to this one is missing from the Mezhihirya villa's collection, its legal owners and whereabouts unknown

Ukrainian news outlets now report the Horch might have been the sole car that Yanukovych managed to take with him somehow, perhaps removing it days before the protests toppled his administration. The car collection itself was not entirely Yanukovych's to begin with; the information placards list various owners who loaned their cars to the administrations of the Mezhyhirya complex, some of them being large corporations based in Ukraine and in Europe.

The Horch 855 placard lists an erroneous manufacture date of 1935 for the Spezial Roadste, which is actually believed to be 1938. It cites a few technical specs, including a 4,911-cc inline-eight cylinder engine making 120 hp, mated to a five-speed manual transmission, but little other information was available. A couple people familiar with the collection confirmed to Ukrainian media that the Horch was indeed there not long ago, so this isn't believed to be a case of a placard announcing a car that was never there. But the story of the missing Horch would likely have not gotten out if whoever stashed away the Horch had taken the little information tag with them.

The Horch 855 Spezial Roadster was a shorter version of the Horch 853, featuring similar coachwork. Only three are believed to have been made in addition to seven more 855 Gl

By Jay Ramey