The bidding on the 1963 Chevrolet Corvette Grand Sport chassis 003 did not just creep past expectations at RM Sotheby’s Monterey sale, it blasted through them, landing at $18,705,000 with fees and rewriting the Corvette record book in one shot. Collectors in the room knew they were watching a historic moment for American racing cars.
That final price more than doubled the previous public-auction high for any Corvette and crushed the Grand Sport’s already-lofty $11–13 million estimate. For anyone tracking blue-chip American performance cars, this is not just another big Monterey number. It is now the benchmark you have to measure serious Corvette money against, even as another car in Monterey grabbed the overall American racing-car record (see last paragraph).
