One of my hobbies is collecting sports memorabilia and scarcity is a strong factor in the value and prominence of any item. My collection has nothing of great value, beyond nostalgia, but I can appreciate a T-206 Honus Wagner baseball card that sells for $7.25 million due to its excellent condition and scarcity with an estimated 60 examples in various condition still floating around.
The automotive industry produces limited-edition vehicles but that is manufactured scarcity and to me does not maintain the same panache as a 110-year-old baseball card. Like being cool or interesting you cannot make a car a rare collectible, it must be organic. Owning a one-of-one collectible in any genre is, well, rare. Heck, there are at least four sets of Dorothy’s ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz in various museums.
The Pick of the Day is a true one-of-one: The 1964 Pontiac Banshee XP-833 prototype listed for sale on ClassicCars.com by a dealer in Milford City, Connecticut. (Click the link to view the listing)
“Designed by GM Executive John Delorean to compete with Fords Mustang the Banshee prototype was finally killed by GM brass viewed the concept would hurt Corvette sales,” the listing states. “The Banshee was suppose(d) to be scrapped but GM employee convinced GM to sell him the car. The car was driven less than 1500 miles and only brought to car shows. The owner passed away in 2006 and put the banshee on the market. This is the only 1964 Banshee coupe in the world with sweeping hood and short deck styling.”
The listing price for the 1964 Pontiac Banshee XP-833 prototype is $1,200,000. That is a substantial amount of cash, but it is also the rare opportunity to be the only person on Earth with the Banshee prototype coupe. It is a historically significant vehicle designed by DeLorean that should be in a museum. To me, the 1964 Pontiac Banshee XP-833 prototype is the definition of rare, and the opposite of my sports memorabilia collection.
To view this listing on ClassicCars.com, see Pick of the Day.
Hope those Pontiac designers got a nice royalty payment from the C3 Corvette team…
De Lorean… over rated self important car “designer”
who’s only success was nagging his wife… but we all knew how that went. Uninspired copycat design from sad man
Copycat design from what? Nothing else looked like that in ’64
Mako Shark perhaps.
No they copied him not vice versa. Nothing resembled this in 1964 let alone the early sixties unless he got SOME inspiration from the Ferrari 250 GTO.
Supposed to say BAGGING NOT NAGGING
Copycat from what? Nothing else looked like that in ’64
It’s a Corvette with a hint of AMX! 😊
Nothing was around in 1964 that looked even close to that….so who copied who?
What a weird looking motor? Looks like a straight 12 cylinder engine..
It’s the Pontiac SOHC “Sprint Six”
NEEDED V-8!
My first reaction was Vett but in 64 even vetts didn’t have that look–Nothing looked even remotely like that–
perfect for rich tools..lots of trophy wife pics
The Pontiac Banshee was going to be the corvette killer, but GM didn’t want that to happen. So they scrapped the idea and gave the corvette of that time the same look as the banshee. Pontiac deserved better. And it wasn’t just the banshee, they were going to make the Pontiac fiero faster than a corvette and then they discontinued the fiero before that could happen. All to protect the perfect image of the corvette
In 1964, the Pontiac Banshee gave us a preview of the 1968 Corvette StingRay. In 1969, John DeLorean was promoted from head of the Pontiac Division to head of the much larger Chevrolet Division. At General Motors, designs are shared among divisions. That’s how they roll.