Evaluation: From the Ray Evernham collection. Campaigned by owner Al Dean and prepared by Clint Brawner and Jim McGee. Based on a 1964 Brabham Chassis. Engine built by Joe Boghosian. Ex-Mario Andretti, driven to nine wins in Indy car competition, including his first, and Indy championships in 1965-66. Andretti finished third and won Rookie-of-the-Year in this car at the 1965 Indy 500.
Shown at Pebble Beach, Amelia Island, and the Pinehurst Concours. Some scratches on the paint, scuffs on the exhaust and faded decals, but more than clean and well-presented enough that the flaws don’t matter. It’s all in the history.
Bottom Line: Mario Andretti is probably the most famous race car driver in America, and is still a household name even among non-car people decades after his retirement. That this car helped launch his career and brought him much early success were enough to make it the star not just of Ray Evernham’s impressive collection of race cars but of the whole Indy auction this year. Even though the opportunities to use an old Indy car are more limited than they are for vintage F1 cars or other circuit racers, it deserved to be the most expensive lot of the auction on history alone.
