Spoiler alert: If you haven’t seen Steve McQueen’s film yet Le Mans and don’t want to know how it ends, we can interest you to click through to another Autoblog after?
Monterey The Autoweek brings together the perfect audience for a showpiece like this, the 1970 Porsche 917K hero car from the 1971 movie Le Mans. Steve McQueen’s Solar Productions purchased chassis 917-022 from Porsche to become the #20 car that his character in the film, Michael Delaney, attempts to drive to cinematic victory at La Sarthe. According to behind-the-scenes stories, after Delaney crashed the #20 past repair in the movie (actually a Lola with 917 bodywork), the crew repainted the car as the #21 917 that Delaney took over for the final stint and drove to second place. That’s a big deal here: second place. The winning car in Le Mans is a different chassis. The appeal of this car is that it’s the car McQueen bought for the movie and drove, and the car he signed off on afterward with, “‘Done.’ Thanks for sticking together.”
As far as we can tell, this chassis was the last to auction block at the 2000 RM Monterey Sports Car Auction, which sold for $1,320,000 after expenses. Hagerty piece reveals that Jerry Seinfeld bought the car in 2001. Mecum has not provided ownership history and does not say whether Seinfeld still owns the 917K, but does claim to have a “complete and known ownership history.”
However, much research into these and other issues will need to be done over the next five months, as the Porsche is not scheduled to go up for auction until 2019. Kissimmee with me 2025 auctions running from January 7-19, 2025. We also do not have an advance estimate. The most recent 917K that is connected to Le Mans to sell at auction earned $10,080,000 after expenses at Gooding & Company’s Pebble Beach AuctionThat remains a record amount for the 917 and the entire Porsche brand.
We know where auction prices have gone since then, and this example will be helped by the fact that it’s freshly restored to its 1970 as-new specification. Now that McQueen’s aura has grown – a curious fact, considering the man was dubbed “The King of Cool” in his lifetime – and 917K values have climbed, it takes more research than you might expect to figure out which Le Mans car deserves which accolade. The parsing is complicated by teams entering eight 917s in the 1970 race, Porsche rebuilding wrecked chassis with extended chassis numbers, and Solar Productions using three 917s for filming, all painted in 1970 race liveries.
For example, in 2021, RM Sotheby’s Monterey Auction offered a 1970 917K who raced at Le Mans and appeared in the film Le Mansstating that 917-031/026 “was immortalized as the winning car in Steve McQueen’s 1971 Solar Productions film Le Mans.” However, this car only appeared in the 1971 film in racing footage that the film’s production crew shot during the 1970 24 Hours of Le Mans. In reality, Mike Hailwood destroyed chassis 917-026 On the way back to the pits on lap 49 of the 1970 race, Porsche rebuilt the car as chassis 917-031/026. The car was not used for filming in 1971.
Previously, Gooding & Co. had added chassis 917-024-2 to its catalogue Pebble beach Auction in 2014. This was a factory team test car that driver Jo Siffert bought it in 1971 and leased to Solar Productions for the film. This was the winning car in the film, the #22 driven by Larry Wilson, played by actor Christopher Waite. Gooding pulled the car of sale before the auction without explanation, and we can find no record of a public sale since then. Race driver David Piper crashed the third 917K during filming, a real Porsche loaned by JW Automotive. Its whereabouts are unknown.
For a detailed overview of what’s what, check out Gianni Cabiglia’s slump at Flat Sixes.
Porsche 917K examples not affiliated with Le Mans have not yet broken the $5,000,000 mark in public auctions. This could be the auction that breaks the $20 million mark next year. Let the hype begin.