23/10/08 Bluecycle Auctions Burt Reynolds NASCAR |
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Bluecycle, one of the UK's leading online marketplaces for car salvage, has auctioned the NASCAR (National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing) belonging to Hollywood star of 1972 film Deliverance and Cosmopolitan's first nude centrefold, Burt Reynolds. American racecar drivers, Harry Gant and Steve Grissom both drove the Winston Cup team #33 Skoal Bandits car, joint-owned by Reynolds and his good friend, Hal Needham, who was the stunt double in the 1955 western TV series, Gunsmoke, as well as writer and director of 1971 film Smokey and the Bandit. Gant moved to NASCAR in 1981 as a driver for Reynolds and Needham. With the movie star fame backing, Gant won a race every year for four years and in 1991, as a team, they finished a career high in the Winston Cup Series Point Chase. They won five races, one pole position, 15 top five and 17 top ten finishes. Piers Wilson, head of market development for Bluecycle, said: "The previous owner of the NASCAR bought it at a charity auction and had a lot of trouble selling it on. We thought this would be an interesting challenge to target this very specific market and so offered to sell the vehicle for the owner, and we managed to sell it straight away in a three-day auction. "We targeted our American customers primarily as NASCAR specialists are predominantly based in the US. We also targeted our UK customers, including the racecar market, and any UK-based NASCAR fans. "We are really pleased with this sale. To our knowledge, nothing like this has been sold on a UK car salvage auction site and it is a true testament to the fact that Bluecycle can sell any type of car salvage regardless of value, rarity and target markets." |
