Worlds Most Expensive Mustang Sells at 2020 Mecum Auctions

Mecum Auctions 33rd annual Indianapolis event, held over July 10th-18th, was the most successful in company history with just over $74 million in overall sales.

The annual flagship event hosted over 1800 vehicles and more than 6000 Road art lots over the course of nine auction days.

The sell-through rate was an impressive 90% with 78% of vehicles sold. Noteworthy, 346 of the total vehicles auctioned were secured by online-only bidders for a value of $10.3M.

The event was headlined by the offering of the John Atzbach Shelby collection, which included the 1965 Shelby GT350R Prototype.

This historically significant Mustang rewrote the history books selling for $3.85M, eclipsing the previous most expensive Mustang, being the 1968 Ford Mustang GT Steve McQueen drove in the movie, Bullitt.

The ‘Flying Mustang’ as it is known, was the first muscle car of its type built for competition. It was driven extensively by Ken Miles, Bob Bondurant, Chuck Cantwell, Peter Brock and Jerry Titus.

The car was designed by the legendary Carroll Shelby to qualify for and compete in the SCCA Production Sports Car series. Impressively, during the 1965 SCCA season, it had more than 10 first-place finishes.

This car was also used to develop and implement the new and improved designs, ideas and components on Shelby’s second R-Model team car (5R001) and the 34 customer R-Models.

Fast forward half a century and the Shelby was unveiled fully restored in 2014 at the Amelia Island Concours where it was awarded best in its class.