Tom Maruska is happy after selling his one-of-a-kind 1963 Ford Thunderbird Italien for $600,000 on Saturday evening.
"I did very well on it," he said by phone today from Arizona, where the car was auctioned. "It's the best year I've ever had in my life."
Although he must pay 8 percent to the auction house in addition to taxes, "I'm very satisfied," he said. "It's a world record for a Thunderbird of any sort."
Maruska of Lakewood Township spent more than a year restoring the custom-made concept car. He restored it to sell it, and Saturday night was the big night. The event, in Scottsdale, Ariz at the Barrett-Jackson Auction Co., was televised live on the Speed Channel.
Maruska and his family were on the stage with the car as bidders vied for the car, but he couldn't tell how many were trying to buy it. "It was impossible to tell from where I was on the stage," he said.
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Maruska identified the winner as Don Williams, who owns a car museum in a Las Vegas hotel and is president of the Blackhawk Museum, another car museum, in Danville, Calif.
Maruska said he met Williams before the auction. "He sat in it, said how much he loved it. He didn't have any questions about it," Maruska said. But the car's history is fully laid out on his Web site, www.tbirdsquare.com , so it probably wasn't necessary, he added.
The News Tribune was unable to contact Williams on Sunday.
The car was shown at the 1964 World's Fair as a concept car. Ford took a 1962 Thunderbird convertible and gave it fastback body design. It was shown at the New York World's Fair's Cavalcade of Custom Cars as well as in Ford's Custom Car Caravan at auto shows nationwide.
After the World's Fair it was supposed to be scrapped, but instead was sold to actor Dale Robertson, who gave it to its gardener and then was bought by a California Ford collector before Maruska bought it for an undisclosed price two years ago.
Maruska said he drove the car to a couple of local car shows and to various locations for photos after he finished the restoration in August, putting a grand total of 60 to 70 miles on it.
Does he think he'll miss it? No, he said, "I bought it to sell it."
