Tag Archives: mecum

Bullitt

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1968 Ford Mustang GT

Offered by Mecum | Kissimmee, Florida | January 2-12, 2020

Photo – Mecum

Okay, so this isn’t just any old 1968 Mustang GT. This is the actual car driven by Steve McQueen in the 1968 film Bullitt. It’s the car that was primarily used in the legendary chase scenes around San Francisco. It’s one of the most famous film cars of all time and is one of two Highland Green ’68 Fastbacks used during the film.

Modifications performed by McQueen at the time of filming included the addition of gray Torq Thrust wheels, removal of the emblems and backup lights, and finishing the front grille in black. The look became so iconic that Ford has sold “Bullitt” edition Mustangs since that mimic this very look.

After filming, the car was sold to a Warner Brothers employee, who used it daily. It was later purchased by someone in New Jersey. In 1974, it was purchased by Robert Kiernan, whose wife used it as a daily driver until the clutch went out in 1980. The car was parked with 65,000 miles on it. McQueen tried to buy it back, multiple times, but Kiernan refused. The car bounced around the garages of friends until 2001.

That’s when Ford introduced the Bullitt Edition Mustang. Kiernan and his son decided to get this car running again. It was unveiled to the public again in 2018. A few bits have been replaced, and the 325 horsepower, 6.4-liter V8 has been rebuilt. Otherwise, the car is all original.

This car has the potential to bring a pretty incredible amount of money. Short of James Dean’s “Little Bastard” showing up for sale, it’s hard to imagine a more valuable “pop culture” car. You can check out more about it here and see more from Mecum in Kissimmee here.

Update: Sold $3,740,000.

Erskine Panel Delivery

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1928 Erskine 51B Panel Truck

Offered by Mecum | Davenport, Iowa | November 7, 2019

Photo – Mecum

Erskine was introduced by Studebaker in 1927 as a low-priced brand and was named for company president Albert Erskine. It lasted through the 1930 model year when Studebaker dumped the idea and absorbed the line into its own.

What Erskine didn’t really do was commercial vehicles. Yet here we are. This is believed to be the only example of the Erskine Panel Truck produced, and it was built in 1928 as part of the Model 51 line, which was powered by a 43 horsepower 2.6-liter inline-six.

The truck was discovered in a warehouse in 1962 and later restored. It’s now being offered as part of Mecum’s “Antique Trucks” day at their massive tractor auction in Iowa. Click here for more info and here for more from this sale.

Update: Not sold, high bid of $19,000.

Update: Sold, Mecum Indy 2020, $28,600.

Update: Sold, Mecum Monterey 2021, $18,700.

September 2019 Auction Highlights

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We’ll start this rundown with Bonhams’ Goodwood Revival sale, where the top sale during the auction was this 1935 Bugatti Type 57 Atalante Faux Cabriolet for $1,848,225.

Photo – Bonhams

The Wolverine Can-Am car we featured sold for $99,254, and the Rochdale brought $31,194. Click here for more results.

Up next we have RM’s Saragga Collection sale in Portugal. All of our feature cars sold, led by the Denzel and the HRG, which sold for $345,025 and $181,745 respectively. The overall top sale was $746,297 paid for this 1931 Bentley 8-Litre Tourer.

Photo Courtesy of RM Sotheby’s

Other feature car sales included the Sado ($7,572), the De Tamble Roadster ($82,037), and the Willys Interlagos ($39,125). Click here for complete results.

Back to Bonhams for their inaugural “MPH” sale, which I think was a one-day online-only auction. Not really sure, as it wasn’t explained clearly on their website. The Brooke ME190 failed to sell, while the overall top sale was a tie. Both this 1993 Ford Escort RS Cosworth (below) and this 1993 Land Rover Defender 110 K13 SOV Prototype (second below) sold for $61,032 each. Full results can be found here.

Photo – Bonhams
Photo – Bonhams

The top seller at Mecum’s Louisville sale was this 1964 Ford Galaxie 500 Lightweight that brought $121,000.

Photo – Mecum

The Chrysler New Yorker we featured was withdrawn from the sale, but you can look through the rest of the results here.

Finally, we have one more from Bonhams: their Swiss supercar sale, including a bunch of cars confiscated from the son of an African dictator. Fun! Our feature feature car was the overall top sale: the Lamborghini Veneno Roadster, which sold for $8,330,076. The Lagonda Taraf failed to sell. In the spirit of over-the-top supercars, Most Interesting goes to this 2010 Lamborghini Reventon Roadster that found a new home for $1,966,823.

Photo – Bonhams

The Koenigsegg One:1 brought $4,627,820, and full results are available here.

Atterbury Truck

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1926 Atterbury 5-Ton Truck

Offered by Mecum | Chicago, Illinois | October 24-26, 2019

Photo – Mecum

Autocar has been a player in the heavy truck industry since 1908, and during some of that time, they were building passenger cars. Meanwhile, the Auto-Car Equipment Company was founded in 1904 in Buffalo, New York. When Autocar (of Pennsylvania) got into the truck business in ’08, Auto-Car, of Buffalo, whose sole business was trucks, changed their name to Buffalo.

And in 1910, they reformed again as the Atterbury Motor Car Company. By 1911 they were offering four different capacities of trucks, with the 5-ton example being the largest. This particular truck features a large pickup-style body and is powered by an inline-four engine.

Atterbury introduced new models in 1931, which they continued to produce through 1935 when they closed down. The company never really got huge, selling just 141 trucks in 1929, many to Canada. This one carries a pre-sale estimate of $40,000-$50,000. Click here for more info and here for more from this sale.

Update: Sold $77,000.

1963 Town & Country

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1963 Chrysler New Yorker Town & Country

Offered by Mecum | Louisville, Kentucky | September 20, 2019

Photo – Mecum

The Chrysler New Yorker nameplate dates back to 1940, and the Town & Country model was introduced in 1941. For a while, Town & Country models could be had in all manner of body styles, including a very attractive convertible. But by the time the 50s rolled around, they became the station wagon versions of other Chrysler cars.

And that’s what we have here. The sixth-generation New Yorker went on sale in 1960, and by 1962 those wild rear fins had disappeared. This nine-passenger Town & Country is one of just 1,244 built in 1963. It is powered by a 6.8-liter V8 capable of 340 horsepower.

So why is it notable? Well, there was the limited production, but how many of these actually survived? And in this condition at that? This car retailed for $4,815 when new. It should certainly bring more than that later this month. We’ll have to wait and see just how much more. Click here for more info and here for more from this sale.

Update: Withdrawn from sale.

August 2019 Auction Highlights

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We’ll start in August with Mecum’s Harrisburg sale, where an insane thing happened: the Plymouth Superbird we featured (that also happened to be Richard Petty’s former race car), failed to sell… for $3,500,000. Yeesh. The overall top seller was this 1970 Plymouth Hemi Cuda Sox & Martin drag car for $429,000. Click here for complete results.

Photo – Mecum

Now we move to Monterey, and we’ll start with Bonhams Quail Lodge sale. The top sale was the Ferrari 340 America we featured. It brought $3,635,000. No-sales among our feature cars included the Shelby/De Tomaso racer, the Siata 208 CS, and, I’m pretty sure, this Stutz Monte Carlo. Most Interesting is awarded to this 1935 Bugatti Type 57 Galibier sedan by Gangloff that went for $246,400.

Photo – Bonhams

Other highlights here included the Fran Roxas-bodied Duesenberg for just $478,000, the Hughes-Kircher Special for $304,200, the 1928 Cunningham for $80,000, and a previously-featured 12-seater Delahaye for $86,800. Click here for complete results.

Pivoting back to Mecum for their Monterey sale, we find that the top seller was this 1967 Ferrari 275 GTB/4 that sold for $2,750,000.

Photo – Mecum

The Ferrari 250 Monza was a no-sale at $20,000,000 – which just means that they had exceedingly high expectations for a car they didn’t seem too sure what it was. Other no-sales included the Delahaye Narval and previously-features cars such as this Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith, a Talbot-Lago, the Lamborghini Centenario, a Corvette ZR2 convertible, and the Dragonsnake Cobra. The Gerhardt-Offy and Lola-Menard also failed to sell.

But, Arie Luyendyk’s ’97-winning car went for $440,000. Other sales included the Mercedes Alpine racer for $330,000 and a previously-featured McLaren 675LT Spider for $253,000. Click here for the rest of the results.

Next up is Gooding & Company’s Pebble Beach sale. We’ll start with the no-sales, which included the Alfa Superflow, Jaguar XJR-10, and, I think, a previously-featured OSCA. The biggest seller was this 1958 Ferrari 250 GT LWB California Spider that sold for $9,905,000.

Photo – Gooding & Company

The Ferrari we featured, the Niki Lauda F1 car, sold for $6,000,000. Other Italian sales included the Alfa 256 for $2,755,000 and the Isotta Indy car for $2,645,000.

And our other feature cars, in decreasing order, were the Duesenberg Sport Berline for $2,040,000, the Studebaker Indy car for $1,105,000, and the Tatra for $412,000. Click here for more results.

And to wrap this post up, RM Sotheby’s much-talked-about sale, where the expected star, the 1939 Porsche, failed to sell after mass confusion. They did manage to set a record for a McLaren at auction, selling this 1994 McLaren F1 “LM-Spec” car sold for $19,805,000. These cars are not done appreciating.

Photo Courtesy of RM Sotheby’s

Other no-sales included the Ferrari 196 SP, the Ferrari 375MM, the Vector M12, a Duesenberg, and a previously-featured Maserati. On the “cheap” side of things, we have the 1990s Pantera for $240,800, the Jaguar Pirana for $324,000, and a previously-featured Rolls-Royce for $665,000.

Seven-figure cars included the Lincoln Indianapolis Concept at $1,105,000, the Aston DB5 wagon for $1,765,000, the Ferrari FXX for $3,520,000, and the GT40 Roadster for $7,650,000. Click here for final results.

Ferrari 250 Monza

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1954 Ferrari 250 Monza by Scaglietti

Offered by Mecum | Monterey, California | August 15-17, 2019

Photo – Mecum

It’s a little amusing how much the Mecum catalog is hedging on the description of this car. It is in the catalog as “1954/1959 Ferrari 0432M.” Which is useless info. This car has a nuanced history, that’s for sure. I guess when you own the auction house you want to lay out the facts and let others draw their own conclusions – which I will now do. This car was born in 1954 as a Pinin Farina-bodied 250 Monza Spider.

Only four examples of the 250 Monza were built and they were essentially the 750 Monza with a 3.0-liter V12 instead of a 3.0-liter inline-four. Output was 260 horsepower. This particular car won the 1954 12 Hours of Hyeres with Maurice Trintignant and Luigi Piotti.

Sometime in 1956 or 1957, the car returned to Ferrari, who had it re-bodied by Scaglietti with the pontoon fender-style body you see here. The interesting bit is that this was done at approximately the same time Scaglietti was designing the 250 Testa Rossa. Maybe it’s like a proto-Testa Rossa?

In 1959, it arrived at Luigi Chinetti’s place in New York, and it was shown at the 1959 New York Auto Show. From there it’s had a few owners, including Dana Mecum who had the car restored in 2014. The catalog makes this car seem mysterious. But old cars changed bodies here and there. No big deal. It’s a factory-re-body of a 250 Monza. And it’s wonderful. I look forward to your hate mail telling me why my assumptions are wrong. Check out more info on this car here, and see more from Mecum here.

Update: Not sold, high bid of $20,000,000.

170VS Gelandesport

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1938 Mercedes-Benz 170VS Gelandesport

Offered by Mecum | Monterey, California | August 15-17, 2019

Photo – Mecum

The Mercedes-Benz 170V went on sale in 1935 and quickly became the marque’s most popular model up through the outbreak of WWII. The 170S was introduced in 1949 and was built through 1952 and was slightly larger than the earlier V (which also remained in production into the 1950s).

What we have here is the sole survivor of the 10 170VS examples built – a car known as the Gelandesport. It was specially-built by Mercedes-Benz to compete in the 1938 Deutsche Alpenfahrt, a three-day rally that took drivers through the Alps from Munich to Vienna.

Power is from a 1.9-liter inline-four capable of 65 horsepower. It was discovered by an American in Germany in 1950 and was purchased in 1990 by the current owner, who began a restoration in 1995. That work completed in 2018, and the car is now a highlight of an already-packed Mecum Monterey catalog. Click here for more info.

Update: Sold $330,000.

Three Open Wheel Cars in Monterey

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Offered by Mecum | Monterey, California | August 15-17, 2019

1997 G-Force-Oldsmobile GF01

Photo – Mecum

We’re starting here with Arie Luyendyk’s 1997 Indy 500-winning car. I have an unpopular opinion (influenced heavily by nostalgia) that the 1996-1998 Indy 500s were the greatest. I was up there for Fan Fest (or whatever it was called) as a kid and fell in love this era of open wheel cars. Between Arie and Buddy Lazier, I’m not sure who had a more profound impact on my love for the 500.

G-Force was founded in 1991 by Chip Ganassi and Ken Anderson, and they began building cars for the Indy Racing League in 1997. The car above was the very first GF01 constructed. And it was a beast. Powered by a 4.0-liter Oldsmobile Aurora V8, this GF01 took pole and the win at Indy in 1997 (other GF01s swept the podium). The competition history for this ex-Treadway Racing chassis includes:

  • 1997 Indianapolis 500 – 1st (with Luyendyk)
  • 1997 Texas 500 – 1st (with Luyendyk)
  • 1998 Las Vegas 500 – 1st (with Luyendyk)
  • 1999 Las Vegas 500 – 1st (with Sam Schmidt)

The car was restored by Treadway Racing in its ’97 500 racing livery and is just missing onboard telemetry and an ECU to make it functional. Indy 500-winning cars don’t change hands often, which makes this pretty special. Oh, by the way, the second-place car from ’97 is also offered at this sale. Click here for more info.

Update: Sold $440,000.

1995 Lola-Menard T95/00

Photo – Mecum

In 1995, the Indy 500 was still part of the CART season. We’ve actually featured another Lola T95/00 with Indy history, but it was Cosworth-powered. This car is “Menard”-powered, which mostly means it features a turbocharged 3.6-liter Buick V6 built by-and-for Team Menard.

This Menard-entry in 1996 ended up winning the pole with Scott Brayton behind the wheel. Unfortunately, he was killed testing a back-up car in practice a few days after securing pole. Menard pulled Danny Ongais out of a nine-year retirement to run the car. He was 53-years-old on race day. This car’s competition history includes:

  • 1996 Indianapolis 500 – 7th (with Danny Ongais)

Both of Brayton’s pole-winning cars (1995 and 1996) are being offered at this sale. I chose this one because of its amazing Glidden/Menards livery (and Campbell Hausfeld, a company local to me)… although the other Quaker State/Menards car is quite attractive (and a photo of a similar-liveried car hung on my bedroom wall as a kid). Click here for more info.

Update: Not sold, high bid of $150,000.

1967 Gerhardt-Ford

Photo – Mecum

Here’s something a little older. Fred Gerhardt’s Fresno, California-built open-wheelers were all over the USAC circuit in the late 1960s. They were a competitive chassis that ran many races between about 1965 and 1971. Somehow, it is said that Gerhardt only built 11 examples. I think the “in 1967” part of that sentence was missing from the catalog.

This example is powered by a rear-mounted Ford 4.2-liter DOHC V8. It was purchased new by Walter Weir, who entered the car in the ’67 500 for F1 driver Lorenzo Bandini, who died at Monaco a few weeks before Indy. Thus, the competition history for this car includes:

  • 1967 Indianapolis 500 – 28th, DNF (with Al Miller)
  • 1968 Indianapolis 500 – DNQ, (driver unknown)
  • 1969 Indianapolis 500 – DNQ, (driver unknown)
  • 1971 Indianapolis 500 – DNQ, (with Bill Puterbaugh)

It has had several owners since and has been restored. It’s eligible for historic events and can now be yours! Click here for more info and here for more from this sale.

Update: Not sold, high bid of $115,000.

June 2019 Auction Highlights

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We pick up well into June with Osenat. The Bugatti Type 35B was the only car we featured and it was easily the top seller at $455,822, therefore we shall award Most Interesting to this 1950 Hotchkiss Type 686 S. It brought $65,638. Click here for complete results.

Photo – Osenat

We’ll stay in Europe for our second sale, which was from H&H Classics in Duxford. $284,358 took home this 1957 AC Ace-Bristol, besting all other lots in terms of price. The Stanley Steamer we featured didn’t meet its reserve. More results can be found here.

Photo – H&H Classics

Onward to Mecum in Portland where this 1969 Ford Mustang Boss 429 was the top seller at $275,000. You can find more results here.

Photo – Mecum

Next up: Barrett-Jacksons’ Northeast sale, and we didn’t have any feature cars from this sale either. Someone paid $2.7 million for the final Corvette Z06 – a car that hasn’t even been built yet. With that dumb bit of news out of the way, the top-selling car that actually existed was $280,500 paid for this 2008 Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren Roadster. More results are available here.

Photo – Barrett-Jackson

Finally, we have Bonhams’ Chantilly sale where a rough sell-through rate saw our featured Gordini take home top sale honors at $779,769. The Arnolt-Bristol and Alfa 6C both failed to sell, but a previously-featured Salmson found a new home for $57,183. Most Interesting goes to this 1961 Alfa Romeo Giulietta Sprint Speciale that sold for $98,770. Click here for final results.

Photo – Bonhams