Corvette: Sales, News & Lifestyle: [VIDEO] Gulf One 1963 Corvette Z06 Sells for $1.05 Million

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January 25, 2009

[VIDEO] Gulf One 1963 Corvette Z06 Sells for $1.05 Million

Dr. Dick Thompson, aka "The Flying Dentist" dominated SCCA racing in 1963 with this factory-backed 1963 Corvette Z06 race car. On Saturday afternoon at the Mecum High Performance Auction in Kissimmee, Florida, the "Gulf Oil" Corvette dominated the field once again with an auction-high gavel price of $1,050,000!

Dr. Thompson was on hand to sign autographs and introduce his old Corvette. He joked that the Corvette looked better today than it did when he was driving it. Noted Z06 historian Eric Gill was also on the stage and showed the original starting lineup for the 1963 24 hours of LeMans that had "Gulf One" in the #1 position followed by Mickey Thompson's Z06 in position #2. Unfortunately, GM pulled out and "Gulf One" never made it to France to compete on the world stage.

Bidding on the “Gulf One” Corvette Z06 opened at $400,000 and quickly climbed to $900,000. When the bid topped $1 million the crowed cheered and that seemed to elicit one more bid of $1,050,000 which removed the reserve. No other bids came in and the hammer dropped on this historic race car.

Although the $1.05 million selling price of "Gulf One" is significant, it was still less than the $1.485 million paid for the 1962 Gulf Oil Corvette that sold in August of 2008 at Gooding & Company's Pebble Beach auction. That Corvette was also driven by Dr. Dick Thompson who finished first in class 12 times including wins at Daytona and Sebring and captured the 1962 SCCA-A production championship.

Sources:
Mecum