Next month during the famed Amelia Island concours weekend in Florida, high end auction house Gooding & Co. will offer the world’s wealthiest an opportunity to fight over one of the most significant racing cars of Toyota’s history. Only three Shelby American Toyota 2000GT C Production racers were ever built and raced, and this is one of them. Regular road-going 2000GTs tend to sell at or near seven figures, so you can easily expect this one to sell deep into the millions.
This car is chassis number MF10-10001, meaning it is truly the first serial numbered 2000GT ever built. Combine that with the car’s history as a Shelby American race car for the 1968 SCCA C Production class, and you’ve got a whole lot of amazing car in one package. It’s not all that uncommon to hear the 2000GT as being in the conversation of most beautiful car in history, and I’m inclined to believe that it is. Mix all of that up into a pot with a heavy helping of rarity, and you’ve got a recipe for a bidding war.
This car was initially retired from racing in the late 1960s and continued on as a normal weekend driver. When the car was “uncovered” by Maine Line Exotics co-founders Bob Tkacik and Peter Starr in the late 1970s it was still wearing most of its Shelby race parts, including the 7x15 magnesium wheels, roll bar, seats, and 230-horsepower race-spec engine. Some of the original race parts were missing, however, and it took Maine Line over 15 years to track down and re-create all of the pieces needed for the full restoration.
Following the completion of the restoration, the car has been kept in Tkacik’s private collection and frequently entered in concours and vintage race events around the world. The aging restoration was so well done, even all these years later, that it won its class at the 2017 Amelia Island Concours. It is an occasional entrant in major vintage racing events like the Monterey Motorsports Reunion and the Goodwood Festival of Speed. We can only hope that the new owner will continue to bring the car out for vintage events, because if this car ends up in a glass case in some billionaire cretin’s basement, I’m going on a dick punching spree.
Maine Line allegedly offered the car for sale in 2012 for a whopping 1.7 million, but apparently couldn’t find a buyer at the time. You can bet that in today’s market, they’ll be looking for a bit more money than that. If you’ve got a few million greenbacks burning a hole in your pocket on March 4th, make sure you’re in Florida for this auction. I guess there are worse things to spend millions on. I’d rather have this than any stupid fucking NFT.