If you had wanted to buy Princess Diana’s 1985 Ford Escort RS Turbo, it has already been sold–for $764,000.
Add this to things I just don’t understand .
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It’s amazing what people with cubic yards of disposable money will do with it. I wonder what the new owner will do with it.
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A signed letter from Steve Jobs responding to a fan who wanted his autograph explaining that he doesn’t give autographs sold for just under half a million. For a piece of paper with some ink on it.
By that yardstick, the Escort was underpriced. 
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As the saying goes, a fool and his money are soon parted. And someone would have to be a real fool to pay $764k for an economy car, which probably sold for less than $12k when new 37 years ago. Sure, the car has “provenance”, but at the end of the day, it’s just a basic car, which millions of them were made.
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Electronic carb probably. New owner will likely have some challenges if they want to keep it in top running form. May be a very good investment. That tv show Pawn Stars, most of the stuff they buy, imo they pay more than it is worth. But they seem to know what they are doing, and must have no problems selling it at a profit. Collectibles requires a lot of expertise I guess.
One time a customer brings in a Picasso sketch, original, but just a quick sketch. Customer wants $40K. Even the P shop thought that was too much. I was thinking if I wanted a sketch like that, I’d just paint it myself … lol …
It is fuel injected.
May be pretty good then.
It’s the condition with low mileage that would help this bring a higher price at auction even without the royal connection, not every celebrity owned car brings in big money but in this case there must have been two or more who really wanted this in the collection.
I agree that is crazy money . But the RS Turbp version was not an economy car . It seems only 8400 were made and not many still exist so it is a collectible.
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If this car was just owned by some random person, and not the late Princess, how much do you think it would be worth, as a collectible? Certainly not more than $50k, even in mint condition, and with low miles? (And just to be clear, I wouldn’t even pay $50k for a used Ford Escort, but you get my point.)
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Pistonheads classifieds has three RS Turbo;s listed but only the $44,000 example is still for sale according to the dealer’s site. The other dealer appears to specialize in collector examples of various fords from Cortina’s to the final run Focus RS
As far as people spending money on collectibles:
A Mickey Mantle baseball card from 1952 sold for a jaw-dropping $12,600,000 early Sunday morning, according to a news release from Heritage Auctions
I suspect the original price paid in 1952 was $0.05 and included a piece of gum.
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Similarly, a shredded Banksy piece sold at auction sold for $25.4 million. It was originally sold for $1.4 million, and was sabotaged by the artist to self-destruct upon that purchase; so, someone buys that for 25.4 mil. woof. I’m glad with what I create and that’s that. (though I could sure use the dough)
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for $12.6 million I had better get a fresh piece of gum with it…
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