Towards the middle of the year, auction season here in the US typically slows down a bit. With driving season underway, events for using cars rather than buying them start filling the calendar. The huge, sprawling exception to this is “Dana Mecum’s Original Spring Classic,” known to most of us auction-watchers simply as “Mecum Indy.” Typically spanning over a week and ending the weekend before the Indy 500, this is Mecum’s second largest sale after Kissimmee (over $200M in total sales this year) and the largest auction event going on between Amelia Island and Monterey.
Last year, the nine-day mega-auction at the Indiana State broke $100M in total sales and in 2023 it broke nine figures again. The 70 percent sell-through rate was Indy’s lowest since 2020, but with over 2500 vehicles on offer there was more to choose from.
Classic muscle is the bread and butter at Indy, and there was much fanfare around two special Mopars – the one-off, unrestored 1970 Plymouth Cuda "Rapid Transit" show car and the famous, also unrestored 1970 Dodge Hemi Challenger "Black Ghost." The Rapid Transit Cuda brought $2.2M and was the top sale of the week. The Black Ghost, which has a neat story behind it, brought $1.07M.
Now that the final hammer has fallen in Indy, check out the pages below for deeper looks at some of the auction's most interesting, significant and surprising cars.
Boy, when the auction buyers wake up from their Cool-aid coma there are going to be a lot of BAD HEADACHES! These prices are insane (literally).