Recently a second Toyota 2000GT went up for auction. When the bidding was over, the gavel fell on $935,000 for the 1968 Belatrix Yellow supercar. While it fell slightly short of the $1.2 million baby from Texas earlier this year, it’s still a highly respectable sum. Here’s why.
First, the Texan 2000GT was a 1967, the model’s first production year. None of us at JNC would hesitate to accept keys to a ’68, but for people who have the dough to shell out a million bucks for a car, bragging rights to a first-year example means something.
Second, the Texas car had undergone a fairly thorough restoration according to the seller. In the above photo, you can clearly see that some bolts are missing from the front underbody pan. It looks great in photos, but it makes you wonder what else has been overlooked.
Still, it’s the holy grail of Japanese classics and one of the most beautiful cars ever made. This one is also one of 54 originally sold in the US. Though it was just shy of seven digits, there are now two 2000GTs that have sold, for all intents and purposes, a million dollars when just a few short years ago some were still balking at the going rate of $500,000. Seems like a bargain now.
Look closely and you’ll see blue valve-stem caps. Not only are they the wrong color, but everal were split or cracked. When I examined the car, I noticed it immediately.
Small details like these are easily correctable, and leave strong impressions on potential buyers about the general state of the car. One goes through the mental exercise “Well, if the owner didn’t care about this detail, what else didn’t he care about?”
Opening the engine bay revealed the answer. Sloppy attention to detail, and incorrect pieces. All of which could have been made right for a tiny fraction of the sale price, and perhaps garnered an even bigger sales price.
To make matters worse, the owner is a well known collector of 2000GT’s. I’ve heard it said that this was his worst car, but i dont think he did himself any favors by being so negligent with his offering. I get that if you have many of them, a few are going to get neglected. But c’mon- at $1,000,000, would it kill you to spend a few days making the car right?
Well, I guess it’s time for fomally declare the 2000GT to be a powerball/lottery car. I’ll always have one in Gran Turismo, and in my dreams…
I don’t know about anyone else but these major auction house have what is called buyers premium of 10%, therefore buyer paid $935K + $93.5 = $1028.5K
In this case, the high bid was $850k, with total price paid $935k.
Look at the front, nose is pointing down like every accidented 2000GT who where badly repaired. Wings mirrors are not the originals. Side skirt is not clean, dust or worst ?
Then must check what has been done to the car, engine renew ? brakes ?…
This price is dereasonably to high for me.
Those mirrors really annoy for sure…
I’d better start saving up for my 432 while they’re still a <100k car.
I seriously think the 240z will soon go the way of the 911… They have far more in common than you expect when you know a little about the history of both.
2000gts being repeatedly sold for avg 1m says it pretty well; japanese classics are going to be big