The Rarest And Sexiest American Sports Car Just Sold For The Price Of Five Ferrari F80s
Monterey Car Week has always been where wealthy collectors gather to spend terrifying amounts of money on old cars, but 2026 pushed the madness to another level. A Ferrari sold for $40 million, a McLaren F1 GTR pulled in nearly $35 million, and somebody paid more than $17 million for a Daytona SP3.
However, one blue American race car managed to steal plenty of thunder from the European exotics. It arrived with a pre-sale estimate of $11 million to $13 million, already enough money to buy an entire warehouse full of new Corvette ZR1s. Then the bidding began, sanity left the room, and the most valuable Chevrolet Corvette in auction history was crowned.
This 1963 Corvette Grand Sport Sold For $18.7 Million
The 1963 Chevrolet Corvette Grand Sport chassis 003 sold for an incredible $18,705,000 at RM Sotheby’s Monterey auction. That figure absolutely destroyed its estimate and more than doubled the previous Corvette auction record of $7.705 million, set by the Corvette SS Project XP-64 in 2025.
This Grand Sport is now the third-most expensive American car ever sold at auction. Only the $22 million 1935 Duesenberg SSJ and the $42.905 million 1964 Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe sit above it. Not bad for an old ’Vette built during a secret racing program that General Motors executives tried to kill.
Only five original Grand Sports were constructed, making them rarer than the Ferrari 250 GTO and Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe. Chassis 003 was also the first of just three coupes, so collectors were never going to let this thing escape for pocket change.
The Grand Sport Was Chevrolet’s Secret Cobra Killer
Zora Arkus-Duntov created the Grand Sport to beat Carroll Shelby’s brutally fast Cobra. GM had officially stepped away from factory racing, but Duntov clearly did not receive the memo, or perhaps he received it and tossed it directly into the nearest trash can.
Although it looked like a split-window Sting Ray that had swallowed a bottle of steroids, nearly everything underneath was different. The Grand Sport used a unique tubular chassis, ultra-light fiberglass bodywork, and hundreds of competition-specific components. It weighed approximately 1,900 lbs, making it around 1,300 lbs lighter than a regular 1963 Corvette.
Its current all-aluminum 377-cubic-inch V8 produces an estimated 600-plus horsepower and more than 600 lb-ft of torque. Four enormous Weber carburetors sit on an aluminum cross-ram intake, while a close-ratio four-speed manual sends all that fury to the rear wheels.
That combination gives the Grand Sport a ridiculous power-to-weight ratio even by modern standards. Former driver Delmo Johnson once described a big-block version as being like a dragster, claiming it could lift its front wheels in all four gears. Subtlety was clearly not on Chevrolet’s engineering checklist.
This Corvette Has The Racing History To Justify Its Price
Chassis 003 was not built merely to look mean under showroom lights. Dick Doane drove it to three SCCA class victories in 1963, and it played a major role in Mecom Racing’s dominant Bahamas Speed Week campaign. At the 1964 12 Hours of Sebring, A.J. Foyt started 62nd and reportedly passed around 50 cars during the opening lap. He and John Cannon eventually finished second in class despite mechanical trouble and a blocked pit exit. The Corvette returned to Sebring in 1965 and claimed third in class.
Its driver list reads like American racing royalty: Foyt, Jim Hall, Augie Pabst, Dick Thompson, John Cannon, and Delmo Johnson all got behind the wheel. The car has since appeared at Goodwood, the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion, and the Sonoma Motorsports Festival. During its previous owner’s 23-year stewardship, chassis 003 received a painstaking restoration to its authentic 1964 Sebring specification. The job reportedly consumed more than 4,000 labor hours and approached $1 million, which suddenly sounds almost reasonable compared with the final sale price.
The hammer price may seem outrageous, but this is no ordinary classic Corvette wearing fancy racing stripes. It is one of five factory-built monsters, a proven Cobra eater, and the physical remains of Duntov’s forbidden racing dream.
Someone just paid $18.7 million for an old Chevrolet, and somehow, this badass blue brute makes that sound almost logical.
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