Neil Peart’s Classic Car Collection Brings in $3.9 Million at Auction
A collection of six vintage sports cars that belonged to late Rush drummer Neil Peart brought in a total of $3.9 million at auction during California's Pebble Beach Auctions on Aug. 12-13.
The sales, organized by auction house Gooding & Company, preceded the area's annual Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance automotive charity event on Aug. 15. Peart's mostly silver vehicles, dubbed the "Silver Surfers" by the Rush icon before his January 2020 death, were initially expected to fetch anywhere from $150,000–$1.5 million apiece.
See the collection down toward the bottom of this post.
The cars that sold were Peart's 1963 Chevrolet Corvette Split-Window Coupe, 1964 Jaguar E-Type Series I 3.8-Litre Coupe, 1964 Shelby Cobra 289, 1965 Maserati Mistral Spider, 1970 Lamborghini Miura P400 S and 1973 Maserati Ghibli 4.9 SS Coupe.
As reported by UCR after the auctions, the Lamborghini sold for the highest amount, going for $1.325 million — the other automobiles' final prices each came in under that amount, with all six adding up to the $3.9 million total. An additional Peart vehicle that was part of the "Silver Surfer" collection, a 1964 Aston Martin DB5, did not sell after its reserve price wasn't met. (It will presumably go up for auction again at later date.)
Peart once explained of his rides, "The title 'Silver Surfers' for my collection of cars occurred to me while driving the DB5 up and down the Pacific Ocean. Because it felt right to me, I guess — the idea that I was just one of the wave riders."
He continued, "I had moved from Toronto to Los Angeles in 2000, and in search of natural peace, I often drove out that way and up into the Santa Monica Mountains. Out past Malibu to Ventura County, I'd weave along barren ridges of rock and vegetation, the ocean always on one big side. Some days would be misted by the marine layer, while other days the sun blared through a clear sky. The waves were slow and gentle, or churned out a powerful, rolling rhythm. It was during one of these drives when out of nowhere, it just occurred to me that the color of the ocean had influenced the silver palette of the collection. What other color looks as good in a blue photo? Not black, not white – silver. And a fortunate risk for the framers' art, too: silver frames."
In June, Gooding & Company founder David Gooding said, "We are beyond honored and humbled to be entrusted with the sale of Mr. Peart's beloved collection of classic cars. Neil Peart touched the lives of so many through his groundbreaking career in music, including my own, and we are confident that his personal curation of classic cars will resonate with passionate collectors, finding them new homes with the same appreciation for them as the icon himself held."
Read about the original listings at goodingco.com.