Gooding & Co. Sell One-Of-Twenty Porsche 911 GT1 For $5.66 Million
The low-mile motorsport homologation special crossed the auction block Friday afternoon to huge fanfare.
Unlike some cars sold this weekend during the Amelia Island auctions, we're hardly surprised by the huge figure fetched by this gorgeous 911 GT1 example. The carbon-fiber/tube frame, motorsport-derived, street-going, original mid-engine 911 was only built in a single batch of 20 cars, and they very rarely come up for sale. Anywhere. For any price. When this one marched across the auction dais, it was the first 911 GT1 we'd seen for sale in quite a while. The Strassenversion (street version) 911 GT1 got the in-room bidders whipped up into a bit of a frenzy, drawing huge jumps in price with every new bid.
Porsche's 911 GT1 program was ultimately successful in its endeavors, as the racing version won the 24 hours of Le Mans in 1998, taking a Porsche 1-2 finish in the program's final season. Designed to compete directly in the FIA GT Championship, the car was obviously intended as a racing car first with the street car essentially an afterthought. The Strassenversion is basically a racing car built to comply with street car regulations. Each example was hand-assembled by Porsche's motorsport division, and sold to Porsche's VIP customers at a loss.
This car has passed through a handful of owners, with the first owner keeping the car in Germany until 2003 when it sold to a Florida Porsche fanatic. This was the first car of its kind to be imported to the US, through a similar circumstance that allowed Porsche's 959 into the country with Show and Display regulations.
Leading into the GT1's sale, the prior lot, a 997 generation GT2 RS got the Porsche fanatics excited. Following the GT1's sale, Porsche fanatics were apparently still quite excited as they bid a 997 GT3 RS 4.0 up to a startling three-quarters of a million. We'll have a full auction report coming as soon as all prices have been confirmed by their individual auction houses.