Paul Newman got the bug for auto racing during the making of his 1969 film “Winning” and he kept doing that himself for years to come. The Hollywood legend raced sports cars in several series until just before his death in 2008.
One of his biggest victories came at the 1995 Rolex 24 at Daytona, where he teamed up with Tommy Kendall, Mark Martin and Mark Brockman for a GTS-1 class win in a 1995 Ford Mustang Cobra for Roush Racing when he was 70 years old. The win marked Roush’s 10th consecutive class victory in the race.
The Mustang wore a sponsor livery promoting Newman’s film “Nobody’s Fool” and finished third place overall. Afterward, the team put a fresh body on it and lent it to what is now the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America to put on display.
Roush saved the dirty body from the race, however, and reinstalled it on the car before putting it up for auction at the Mecum Auctions Nashville event on Saturday, along with dozens of other Roush-owned cars.
Equipped with a 6.0-liter V8 and five-speed transmission, the car sold for $935,000 including the show bodywork. The price was tops among those paid for one of the Roush collection cars ahead of Tommy Kendall’s 1997 SCCA Trans Am Mustang Cobra, in which he won the championship and 11 consecutive races, which set set a record that still stands today.
Read Also: FORD’S SECRET V10 MUSTANG SOUNDS AMAZING
Newman’s final victory came at age 82, when he won an SCCA club race in a 900-horsepower GT1 Chevrolet Corvette at Lime Rock Park, which was his home track and now has a straight named in his honor. Facing a terminal lung cancer diagnosis, Newman returned to the track the following year at 83 to take his final laps in the car during a private session arranged in his honor.
