The owner of a Ford Falcon GTHO Phase III passed in for $620,000 at auction, confident the muscle car classic will sell on the private market.
“I'm a little disappointed but the up side is that I get to keep the car for a little longer,” owner Steve Ribarevski said after the Shannon's Australian International Motor Show Auction at Darling Harbour.
“The bidding wasn't very far away from the reserve so I think we will hear from the potential buyers pretty quickly.”
The immaculate Monza Green 1971 XY was expected to beat the $683,650 record price, which a Queensland buyer paid for a similar car earlier this year.
However, after starting at $560,000 bidding was restricted to a couple of buyers and quickly stalled at the $620,000 mark.
Ribarevski, 30, bought the fully-restored GTHO for $200,000 three years ago saying it was a promise he had made to himself years earlier.
“I was told by everyone at the time that I was the biggest goose in town for paying that much money for the car but I had promised myself I would own one before I was 30,” he said.
“I don't look that silly anymore.”
Also passed in at auction was number plate “6,” which had been expected to sell for more than $1 million.
Confusion reigned when the winning bidder withdrew his $910,000 offer and the underbidder had hung up the phone and couldn't be contacted.
The plate was put back to auction again but it failed to reach its undisclosed reserve, stalling at $895,000.
It was only the second time since the number was issued to the Tramways Department in 1915 that it had come up for auction. The first was in 1983 at the first RTA number plate auction when it set the then record price of $50,500.
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