Mecum Auctions closed its Indianapolis sale with $193 million in total sales across nine days, shattering the venue’s previous record of $124 million by nearly $70 million, according to Mecum’s own results release for the 39th Original Spring Classic. The top lot was a 1963 Ferrari 250 GT SWB California Spyder, which sold for $18.15 million and stood well above everything else that crossed the block May 8-16.

Key Points

• Total sales: $193 million, a new Indianapolis record for Mecum, up from $124 million the year before.
• More than 2,600 lots went through the ring at a 76% sell-through rate.
• The 1963 Ferrari 250 GT SWB California Spyder topped the sale at $18.15 million.
• A 1965 Shelby GT350R Fastback, previously raced by Dick Jordan, brought $2.75 million — the ninth-highest sale of the week.
• A one-of-nine 1970 Ford Mustang Boss 429 Fastback in Grabber Green sold for $660,000.
• May 16, the final day, generated $127 million on its own — a single-day record that alone beat the previous year’s entire nine-day total.

The Ferrari That Set the Pace

The 250 GT SWB California Spyder is one of the most sought-after Ferraris ever built, a short-wheelbase open-top variant of a car already considered a high point of early-1960s Maranello design. Six vehicles at the Indianapolis sale broke the $5 million mark, and the Ferrari’s $18.15 million result put real distance between it and the rest of that group, which included a 2003 Ferrari Enzo at $10.23 million, a 1995 Ferrari F50 at $9.79 million and a 2005 Maserati MC12 at $9.46 million, per the same Mecum results data confirmed independently by Old Cars Weekly’s coverage of the sale.

American Muscle Held Its Own

The Ferrari wasn’t the only car generating serious money. The Shelby GT350R that sold for $2.75 million carried genuine competition history as a car Dick Jordan raced, and an early-production standard 1965 GT350 also cleared $1.1 million in the same sale, according to duPont Registry’s reporting on the results. The Boss 429’s $660,000 result reflects both its factory-homologation rarity — Ford built the 429 specifically to legalize a NASCAR engine — and the extra premium buyers pay for a documented one-of-nine color combination.

Together the numbers point to a collector market still willing to pay record prices for cars with the right combination of rarity, documentation and history, whether that history was written on European roads or American ovals.