A 1963 Chevrolet Corvette Grand Sport sold for $18,705,000 with fees at RM Sotheby’s Monterey auction on August 15, the most money ever paid for a Corvette at public auction. Chassis 003 carried a pre-sale estimate of $11 million to $13 million. Bidding opened near $5 million and moved in increments of roughly $500,000 before the hammer fell at $17 million.
The previous public-auction high for a Corvette was just over $7.7 million, paid for the Corvette SS Project XP-64 at RM Sotheby’s Miami sale in 2025.
Five Built, Three of Them Coupes
Chevrolet built five Grand Sports under Zora Arkus-Duntov, who wanted a lightweight Corvette capable of beating Carroll Shelby’s Cobra. Chassis 003 was the first coupe completed. GM chairman Frederic Donner ordered the program killed after journalists spotted the prototypes testing at Sebring in late 1962, since the project contradicted the corporation’s official withdrawal from racing. Arkus-Duntov kept the cars running through private teams instead.
Little beyond the silhouette carried over from the production Sting Ray. Engineers swapped the production frame for a thin-wall tubular structure, fitted a single-piece fiberglass body with Plexiglas side and rear glass and specified Girling disc brakes with aluminum calipers. Weight came in near 862 kg (1,900 lb) against roughly 1,451 kg (3,200 lb) for a standard 1963 Corvette. Fewer Grand Sports exist than Cobra Daytona Coupes or Ferrari 250 GTOs.
Doane, Nassau and Two Sebrings
Dick Doane ran chassis 003 in eight SCCA events during 1963 and won its class at Wilmot and Greenwood. At the Road America 500 that September he led for 93 laps before the engine failed.
The car went to John Mecom Jr.’s team for Bahamas Speed Week in December 1963. Augie Pabst finished fourth in the Governor’s Cup. John Cannon took second in class and eighth overall in the Nassau Trophy, the race where the three Grand Sports outran Shelby’s Cobras and picked up the Snake Eaters nickname.
Mecom entered the car at the 1964 12 Hours of Sebring for A.J. Foyt and Cannon. Qualifying problems left it 62nd on a 66-car grid. Foyt passed roughly 50 cars on the opening lap and the Corvette ran as high as eighth before a worn axle spline forced a long stop. Foyt and Cannon finished 23rd overall and second in class. Ridgeway Racing entered the car at Sebring in 1965 with a 427 sourced by Arkus-Duntov, and Delmo Johnson, Dave Morgan and Ed Sevadjian took third in class.
Restored to 1964 Sebring Specification
The consignor bought the car in 2003 and sent it to Terry Scarborough Racing of Sonoma, California to return it to the configuration it ran at Sebring in 1964. RM Sotheby’s puts the job at more than four years and upward of 4,000 hours. The current engine is an all-aluminum 377-cubic-inch V-8 with four Weber 58 DCOE carburetors on an original cross-ram manifold, estimated at more than 600 horsepower.
The week’s top American result went elsewhere. A 1964 Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe brought $42,905,000 at Gooding Christie’s Pebble Beach sale.
