Cars on the big screen often lead very different lives once the cameras stop rolling. Most are tossed aside, scrapped, or ushered into the background of the next big thing. The star of 1971’s Le Mans, the 1970 Porsche 917K, was luckier than most. It was passed around by various Porsche collectors after the film, including Jerry Seinfeld, living life as a real race car. And now you can own it, too, when it heads to auction early next year.
The Porsche was the movie’s hero car, which Steve McQueen piloted to a second-place finish as Michael Delaney for the Gulf Porsche team. McQueen’s production company bought the Porsche, chassis 22, for the film, a fictional depiction of the iconic 24 Hours of Le Mans race.
Porsche developed the 917 in the late 1960s, putting a 4.5-liter flat-12 engine in it that’d eventually grow to 4.9 liters by 1971. The 917K was an evolution of the 1969 original, featuring a shorter tail and improved aerodynamics, which were quickly adopted into the new version. It won seven out of 10 races in the 1970 championship.
After the film, various owners repainted the car for competition, removing the iconic Gulf livery. It’s back after a “meticulous restoration,” revitalizing the race car to its 1970 spec, as seen in the movie. It’ll roll across Mecum’s auction block this January at its Kissimmee, Florida, event. It last sold for $1.2 million in 2000. We bet it'll go for a lot more this time around.
