The 1967 Corvette Convertible owned by Astronaut Gus Grissom was a no sale on e-Bay today as the high bid of $310,100 failed to reach the seller’s reserve price. While we do not know what the reserve price was, we did speak with Dr. Marv Friedman to find out what his plans are for selling Grissom’s 427/435 land rocket.
Marv said he has listed it twice now on eBay and that this was the second and final listing. The first was in May 2006 where the Corvette reached a high bid of $375,000 but still failed to reach reserve. If the car didn’t sell via eBay then it would tailored out to the Barrett-Jackson auction in January 2007.
“I have already spoken with Craig Jackson to make plans to bring the Corvette out to Scottsdale in January for the 36th Barrett-Jackson Auction”, said Marv and continued, “We’re making plans for Jim Rathmann, the former Florida car dealer who sold the Corvette to Gus and who was good friends with him and his wife Betty, to be on the podium to introduce the Corvette.”
Marv said that while he did have some offers on the Corvette, one substantial offer would have resulted in the Corvette being taken out of the United States. Marv declined the offer but acknowledged that the winner of the bidding for the Corvette at Barrett-Jackson could end up doing the same thing.
Marv mentioned that he is also working on establishing a Gus Grissom Scholarship at Purdue University, where Gus attended college. 2007 will mark the 40th Anniversary of the fire that took the lives of Gus Grissom and fellow astronauts Roger Chaffee and Edward White during a launch pad test at the Kennedy Space Center.
View the eBay listing which has some great stories about Gus and his Corvette as well as lots of photos and documentation.
Technorati Tags: Corvette | eBay | Barrett Jackson
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