Rare 1957 Chevrolet Corvette SS Project XP-64 Sold For Record $7.7 Million

A legendary Chevrolet racing car has been sold for an all-time high price.

The 1957 Corvette SS Project XP-64 was developed with the 24 Hours of Le Mans in mind, but never got to compete in the race as all of the U.S. automakers decided to pull out of racing that year.

The XP-64 was a pet project o famed Corvette engineer Zora Arkus-Duntov and only shared its grille with the production Corvette’s design.

It features a magnesium body, chrome-molybdenum tube frame and other lightweight parts that made it 1,000 pounds lighter than a Corvette.

Power is provided by a 300 hp version of Chevy’s 289-cubic-inch V8 that channels its power to the rear wheels through a four-speed manual transmission.

The car was entered in the 1957 12 Hours of Sebring for a shakedown before Le Mans, but had a suspension failure and didn’t finish. Prior to the race, however, Arkus-Duntov let Juan Manuel-Fangio and Sterling Moss take it for a test drive and they both unofficially broke the old track record.

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After its racing career was cut short, Arkus-Duntov managed to save it from the crusher and eventually donated it to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum, which put it up for auction at the RM Sotheby’s Miami event along with several other cars it decided to sell to create a foundation to support the museum’s future operations..

It sold on Thursday night for $7,705,000, which is double the previous highest price ever paid at auction for a Corvette, although that one was a production model.