Auction Lot of the Day: A 1,100-Mile 1987 Shelby Lancer, Bid at $10,000 in a Market Priced on High-Mile Cars

Bring a Trailer’s live list is long on Porsches and Ferraris this week, and the lot with the most interesting valuation question is not among them. It is a Graphic Red 1987 Shelby Lancer, plaque No. 590 of roughly 800, showing 1,100 miles. The three 1987 cars in the results BaT lists for the model since mid-2023 all had 72,000 miles or more. This one asks something the record cannot yet answer: what is a 1,100-mile example of a four-figure car worth? The auction is scheduled to end today.

The lot: what is for sale, and what the number means

The car is Lot #271,975, offered on dealer consignment by SullivanAutoHouse of Wichita, Kansas. The listing shows an end time of Tuesday, Nov. 3, at 1:47 p.m. ET. As of Tuesday morning the high bid was $10,000 from bidder Pcraft248, after 11 bids and with 544 watchers. BaT publishes no estimate, and the listing is not marked no-reserve, so a reserve may still apply. Until the clock runs out, $10,000 is a bid, not a sale price.

Specifications and what makes a 1987 Shelby Lancer different

According to the listing, Shelby Automobiles built the 1987 Lancer in Whittier, California, from the contemporary Dodge Lancer, and every car was finished in Graphic Red. Power is a turbocharged and intercooled 2.2-liter Turbo II four with a Shelby-branded valve cover, factory-rated at 175 horsepower and 175 lb-ft, driving the front wheels through the optional three-speed TorqueFlite automatic. This car adds gray leather, 15-inch basketweave wheels, a sport-tuned suspension, four-wheel disc brakes, a vented hood, Marchal fog lights, a decklid spoiler, air conditioning and power windows, locks and mirrors.

The details that separate a Shelby-built car from an ordinary turbo Lancer are the ones a buyer can check: a numbered dash plaque (this one reads 590), a steering wheel carrying Carroll Shelby’s signature, and Shelby-specific graphics and wheels. The wrinkle is that the plaque, not the paint, is the proof, and the listing shows it in the photo gallery.

Production rarity: 800 cars, then a different car

Roughly 800 Shelby-built Lancers were made for 1987. Chrysler then took production in-house for 1988 and 1989 as the Dodge Lancer Shelby, built in Sterling Heights, Michigan, with a combined total of 487 cars by Wikipedia’s count and “fewer than 500” in Hagerty Media’s account. That Hagerty piece describes a 1988 example as a de-contented Michigan-built car without the Shelby wheels, graphics, steering wheel, Pioneer stereo or numbered plaque. Fewer 1988–89 cars were built, but the 1987 is the only one with the Whittier build and the numbering, which is why the two are not interchangeable on a listing like this one.

Price context: Hagerty puts the 1987 base price at $16,995, against $11,250 for a standard Lancer ES. This car’s window sticker, shown with the paperwork, lists a total of $18,660 and an original delivery to Gesswein Motors of Milbank, South Dakota. A $10,000 bid is therefore well under the original sticker in nominal dollars.

Ownership history and documentation

The listing says the car was bought new by the current owner’s father and acquired from him in 2006, which would make this a two-owner, family-held car from new. That chain comes from the seller; it is not independently confirmed here. The documentation offered with the car is more concrete: the window sticker, a Certificate of Origin, an Advance Dealer Shipping Notice, 1988-dated paperwork, manufacturer’s literature, a clean Carfax report and a Kansas title that carries an “Antique” brand. The listing is the only source for these items.

Originality and condition

The odometer reads 1,100 miles on a six-digit mechanical unit, and the listing describes the car as showing that mileage; it does not state that the mileage is documented as actual. That is the first thing a buyer will want settled. The seller also discloses cracks in the paint on the hood, splitting weather stripping on the rear quarter windows, a Pioneer head unit that works intermittently and an air conditioning system converted to R134a (in the comments the seller says the system was serviced with a new compressor). The tires are 205/60 Mastercraft Touring LSR, not period Goodyears. Nothing in the listing describes a repaint.

Inside, the listing describes gray leather on the front buckets, rear bench and door panels, and the cabin photos show an interior in good order. One bidder asked about a banging sound in the driving video over road imperfections; the seller attributed it to camera audio and rough downtown Wichita streets and said the car drives as it did from the factory.

Comparable sales

BaT’s own results for the model give the clearest comparison, and they all involve high-mileage cars. The table below lists the sales on BaT’s Shelby Lancer results page.

Hagerty Media also reports that Carroll Shelby’s own 1987 Lancer brought $19,040 at Bonhams in 2018, and notes that Hagerty does not currently value Shelby Dodges. That figure is a provenance result and not a guide for an ordinary car. The sold range for comparable-condition cars is $3,500 to $10,000, and four sales are a thin record. Collectors who have watched how mileage moves prices elsewhere may find our look at the Eclipse GSX market relevant, where the gains concentrated in low-mile cars.

Concerns for a bidder

The mileage claim comes first, because nearly the whole value case rests on it. Next are the cosmetic and age items the seller discloses, which are individually small but are exactly what a collector paying a premium for a 1,100-mile car does not expect to find. Low mileage also does not stop hoses, belts, seals, rubber and the turbo plumbing of a 39-year-old Chrysler from aging, so a pre-purchase inspection matters more than the odometer. Finally, the car is a dealer consignment with a reserve possibility, so a bid in the final minutes may not be a sale.

The factor that will set the price

The deciding question is whether bidders treat 1,100 miles with a numbered Shelby plaque as a different product from the 72,000 to 104,000-mile cars that built the sales record. The only result above $10,000 in that record is the 2018 sale of Shelby’s own car. If this Lancer finishes above the 2023 high of $10,000, it would suggest buyers are paying for the odometer and the paperwork. If it lands near the current bid, it would suggest the model, not the mileage, sets the ceiling. Either outcome is one data point, not a trend.

For context from yesterday, the 1953 Peugeot 203 Cabriolet raised a related question about a bid set against an appraisal. The 1980s Detroit turbo story has a close cousin in the Mustang SVO, and the Shelby name on a Mustang is a different market, with Carroll Shelby’s own 1967 GT500 as the provenance counterpart. The Lancer belongs to the same Chrysler front-drive era as the first Chrysler minivan we covered on Nov. 2.

Bidding information reflects the BaT listing as viewed Tuesday morning, Nov. 3, before the auction ended. Confirm the final result on the listing.