Hemmings e news: Ex-racer Chevelle rakes in $1.2

[mockingbird812]

FYI, Hemmings take on things:

Muscle Cars
Ex-racer Chevelle rakes in $1.2 million

This original LS6 Chevelle, an ex-drag car fetched a whopping $1.15 million at the recent Barrett-Jackson auction in Scottsdale.
By now the dust has settled after the craziness at Barrett-Jackson, but the prices paid for muscle cars remain crazy. When will it end? Nobody knows. One thing we do know is a car that once was setting record prices, then kind of fell off the cliff years ago, is back.
Several world records were set on Saturday and it seems that people with tons of money are buying muscle cars. Recently, hoopla has centered around Hemis in any form of Chrysler product, but probably the biggest surprise was what was paid for the 1970 LS6 Chevelle sponsored by Truppi and Kling, who built the engine with sponsorship from South Amboy, New Jersey’s Briggs Chevrolet.
The blue LS6 had but 61 actual miles and a very famous 322,080 feet, a quarter foot at a time. We cannot confirm whether the $1.15 million paid for this car is a world record, but it is safe to say that most likely it is the most money to ever change hands for a 1970 Chevelle, be it an LS6 or a gold-plated job.
We know of a Cranberry Red hardtop that sold a year ago for $300,000 and on Saturday witnessed a Cranberry Red LS6 convertible cross the block at Barrett-Jackson for $513,000--which would have likely been a record had the Truppi-Kling car not brought big money.
In fact, the Ray Allen car stalled at $300,000, until Craig Jackson intervened and reiterated the famous race history of the car. The car then zoomed in price faster than it could accelerate on the drag strip with the final price, including commission, reaching $1,242,000. Incredible.
- By George Mattar

[musclecarjohn]

That's about it in a nutshell...

[jfkheat]

I heard something very interesting about this car today. I stopped at one of the Chevelle parts dealers today and got to talking with an employee about this auction. He told me that the car in tha auction MAY not be the car it is supposed to be and MAY be a restamped engine. He said they were offered the car earlier last year for about 10% of what it sold for but declined. He didn't go into any details and I didn't ask a lot of questions. I don't know how much of this is true. I'm just repeating what I was told today.
James

[P.J.]

Are you suggesting that there is a fix on bidding for these cars???
suprss70

[musclecarjohn]

Nothing that happens at auctions surprises me...

The R&S auction in Monterey feels about as crooked as a 3 dollar bill...same cars every year,shill bidding,etc.
I'm beginning to think R&S owns most of these cars and just buys them back at their own auctions (which is legal)if they don't bring what they want.

[shor]

Wow !, what a bold and inflamatory post to make on a public forum without anything to back it up except some idle chatter down by the local parts counter. I am surprised.

[jfkheat]

This was not the local parts counter. It was one of the largest Chevelle restoration parts suppliers in the country.
James

[Charley Lillard]

I was never under the impression the car had it's orig. engine. Who cares ? It is it's history. I also heard the gossip it was a LS5 car but there was a very real LS6 build sheet with the car. One person spreading the word at the auction that the car was a LS5 car retracted the accusation when he saw the build sheet. There was then reasoning that the car won races before the LS6 was even released. Someone should be able to confirm that. Then the logic went to there must have been two cars..LS5 then LS6. I think the car brought the money because of it's race history more than anything else.

[jfkheat]

Charlie, after I made the first post here about this, I received an email stating some of the same things you mentioned. Since there seems to be so many rumors floating around about this car, it seems very possible that some of them may be true.
James

[Belair62]

It's very possible that the rumors are NOT true too ! Where is Musclecarkid ? Surprised he hasn't piped in...