Steve, Listers,
I am sure that Dick Barker, owner of the Le Mans "mule", 7734KV, will be
especially interested in the outcome of this auction. His Le Mans coupe is
also for sale, and has been for quite some time with very little interest.
He has offered it through Barrett-Jackson on-line auction and previously it
was for sale at Norm Miller's Website. The #9 car is owned by Syd Silverman,
the wealthy former publisher of Variety magazine, who owns quite a stable of
vintage race cars in addition to the #9 coupe. Syd regularly attends vintage
races like the Monterey Historics and brings along five or six of his cars
to drive. Dick's car is very authentically restored, whereas Syd's is more
"sorted out", but a great many changes have been made from the way it was in
1964.
It would probably take some kind of bidding frenzy to get the price of #9 up
to the $1M range. I'm guessing $250-500k tops. This car just doesn't have
the necessary history to fetch what other marques with a more successful
racing history would. The #9 coupe retired after a little over eight hours
(heures?) of the '64 Le Mans with a broken crankshaft. The #8 coupe retired
after three hours with a broken piston. These 260 engines were specially
prepared by Carroll Shelby and later a confidential settlement was made
between Shelby and Rootes. I have come to believe that Shelby, at the very
least, didn't put his best efforts into building these engines and most
probably saw to it that they wouldn't last the race. It is easy to see that
any success of the Tigers, built by Jensen instead of by Shelby American in
the USA, would only detract from Shelby's Cobras. Of course, this is only
pure speculation and those that may know the truth are sworn to secrecy.
----- Original Message -----
From: "stephen jones" <joness@wsu.edu>
To: <tigers@autox.team.net>
Sent: Monday, August 06, 2001 8:27 AM
Subject: ADU 180B?
> My latest Sports Car Market has an ad for the upcoming RM auction at
> Monterey the weekend of the 18th. They show a picture of a Le Mans Tiger
> with number 9 on it. This must be ADU 180B, right? (I couldn't get into
> the RM website to look at the catalog.) the number is smaller and a few
> other changes from the what my highly untrained eye can see. will anyone
> be there at the auction? it'd be interesting to see how the bidding goes
on
> it. there is a 410 dual plug Ferrari that is predicted to go for 4M in
the
> same auction so maybe there'll be a bit of a price frenzy going on.
>
> steve jones
> B9470867
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