A one of a kind Ford GT40 with interesting history sells for a record-setting 11million, officially making it the most expensive American car ever sold.
Usually when you hear about record-setting sales of cars at auction it's in reference to some pre-war classic or vintage European sportscar, but recently a certain Ford GT40 set the record as the most expensive American car ever sold.
GT40's in general are multi-million dollar cars, but this particular GT was special since it was the car used in Steve McQueen's epic race movie LeMans.
GT40's are barely big enough for a regular sized person to squeeze into, much less a camera and camera man, so for filming the roof was removed and a gyroscopically-stabilized, compressed air-powered, 180 degree rotating Arriflex camera, was mounted in the spare tire well. The whole rig was controlled by a dashboard-mounted TV screen.
The doors were also chopped down and an additional 35mm camera was mounted on the passenger side. That one required the handiwork of one of the ballsiest cameramen ever to look through a lens.
That's because McQueen wanted the movie filmed at legit race speeds of 150mph+, and with no roof and cameras hanging everywhere, the GT40's handling became sketchy at best.
After filming wrapped, the GT was sold and traded through a few random collectors until finally being bought by Willie Green of Derby, UK. Willie replaced the roof, swapped the hacked-down doors for early GT40 ones, added fender flares, and relocated the numberplate to clear the exhaust. Willie raced the restored GT at several British meets, before selling it.
The GT passed through many more hands before finally ending up on the RM auction block at Pebble Beach, California last week where it was bid up to the record setting $11million.
So we'll pose the same question the boys over at Top Gear did; if you had the money, would you buy it at that price?