2006 Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS NASCAR racer

This car, Lot 165, sold for $165,000, including buyer’s premium, at RM’s Sam Pack auction in Dallas, TX, on November 15, 2014.

Usable racer, pennies on the dollar

Over the past couple of years, the ACC staff has dedicated more than a few pages to analyzing the financial upside and instant fun factor of parking a retired roundy-round racer in your garage on the cheap.

Our past NASCAR profiles and features have primarily focused on the exceptional value and robust functionality of these cars, but with an emphasis on their usability. The Sprint Cup teams are continually forced to update bodies and chassis to meet ever-growing restrictions in the pursuit of parity, and that effort often results in very short competitive lifespans and overnight obsolescence. As a consequence, a complete chassis, and sometimes a complete car, can roll across the auction block without ever having rumbled down pit lane.

What’s even better is that these cars are often sold complete with those high-winding small-blocks that sing out that beautiful 700-plus-horsepower song. The engineering effort dedicated to the drivetrain components alone is well worth the price of admission, and with parts readily available to the public through specialty suppliers, an over-the-hill stock car can provide an excellent starting point to kick off a recreational racing career. So long as the price is right, of course.

Weapons-grade toy

This car, however, represents a bit of a departure from our previous focus. In fully restored and as-raced (successfully, I might add) condition with all the proper paperwork and authentication, it’s highly unlikely this car has weekend-warrior duty in its future.

Although Jeff Gordon is one of the most successful drivers in NASCAR’s Sprint Cup history, $165,000 is an awful lot of money to drop on what is essentially a full-scale die-cast with no discernable utility. A wise man, or, more likely, a wise woman, once said, “The only difference between men and boys is the price of their toys,” and this sale does little to mitigate that point.

That being said, only two men in NASCAR history have been showered with winner’s circle champagne more times than Jeff Gordon, and no man has seen the checkered flag more in NASCAR’s modern era (post 1972). He owns win records at four different tracks, including Indianapolis’ hallowed Brickyard, and is, most importantly, a four-time Sprint Cup Champion.

Because the greats are ultimately measured in championships, it is worth mentioning that The Wonder Boy trails only The King (7), The Intimidator (7), and Jimmie Johnson (6, but no cool nickname) in that department. Interestingly, aside from Johnson, only one other active driver (Tony Stewart) has more than one championship notch in his belt. Considering the new, much more volatile championship structure, the likelihood of another driver surpassing Gordon’s championship totals any time in the foreseeable future seems rather improbable.

Exclusivity, emotion, dollars

I typically shy away from the topic of pure collectability because I’ve never been very good at preserving, well, anything really. But as far as collectibles go, this one, although expensive, does make some sense.

Although NASCAR’s history is deeply rooted in the South’s moonshiner past and good ol’ boy sensibilities, the sport’s current and future success owes much to Gordon. He is widely credited for leading the way for the new generation of drivers who have reshaped the sport, and he has featured as a prominent figure in NASCAR’s steady injection into the mainstream. He may not be the polarizing figure that Earnhardt Senior was, but he has, like all the greats, seen his number and name proudly emblazoned in back hair and immortalized in skin and ink.

When considering collectability, two primary factors drive outrageous prices: exclusivity and pure, unadulterated emotion.

In 2007, Barry Bonds sent home run 756 over the wall in San Francisco to break Hank Aaron’s home-run record. The ball fell to a 21-year-old student who, wisely, put the ball up for auction almost immediately. When the hammer dropped at Sotheby’s, our young friend pocketed a little over $750,000 despite the fact that the legitimacy of the record was, and still is, hotly debated. Exclusivity clearly won the day. Mix a little emotionally charged nostalgia in and you get something along the lines of the $3.2m sale for a copy of the first Superman comic, Action Comics No. 1, which took place a few months back.

Analyzing this sale using the aforementioned criteria helps paint a fairly clear view of present and future valuation. This particular car ranks fairly low in terms of exclusivity considering the fact that Gordon has driven countless cars over his career, but he has hinted at retiring sooner rather than later, so it’s sure to get a bump soon.

The car does have a few wins tied to it, however, so bonus points there. The wins didn’t come during one of those championship seasons, though, so we have to deduct a few bucks for that.

The documentation, which is an absolute must-have, all seems to be present and accounted for, and the autographed race suits are a nice little bonus.

All those factors add up to what is, as I mentioned earlier, an excellent — but expensive — collectible best suited to a life under glass.

Someone obviously wanted this car because it is an authentic Jeff Gordon car with heritage. It likely won’t appreciate dramatically over the years because Jeff Gordon isn’t the best stock-car racer of all time and he’ll never be remembered as such, but he is one of the best and will always be a part of that conversation.

His legion of fans may disagree with me, however, and as long as they’re writing the checks, they’ll always have the final word. But for now, I’ll call this well sold.

(Introductory description courtesy of RM Auctions.