First 2014 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray sold for a cool mil, benefits cancer charity

The auction for the right to buy the very first 2014 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray Convertible was held at the Palm Beach Barrett Jackson Auto Auction. The proceeds of this auction go to the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute – a charity to which General Motors has donated more than $6 million dollars over the past fifteen years. They are one of 40 National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer centers in the United States. Karmanos is a group that strives to “prevent, detect and eradicate all forms of cancer.” Thanks to the auction for the first 2014 Corvette Stingray Convertible adds another $1,000,000 to that total and that massive donation comes courtesy of NASCAR General Motors team owner and hardcore automotive collector Rick Hendrick. Hendrick also won the Barrett Jackson auction for the right to buy the very first 2014 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray Coupe back in January – having paid $1.05 million dollars for the first hardtop C7 Vette.
That’s right…Rick Hendrick’s collection will soon include both the first 2014 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray Convertible and the first 2014 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray Coupe.

For those who are reading this yet are somehow unfamiliar with Rick Hendrick, he is one of the most successful team owners in NASCAR history and he has done so while running General Motors race cars so it is fitting for the man who rose to fame thanks to GM high performance to be so involved in the GM collector’s world.

The 2014 Corvette Stingray Convertible that rolled across the Barrett Jackson auction block was actually the prototype that helped introduce the new droptop Stingray last month in Geneva. Much like the auction for the first coupe back in January, a prototype was used because the first production car had not yet been built. The downside to this type of advanced auction is that the buyer has to wait to get his new sports cars while the upside is that Rick Hendrick will get to configure both of his new Corvettes exactly how he wants them. Hendrick’s 2014 C7 Coupe will be Vin #0001 but the VIN of the Convertible will be determined once production begins at GM is not currently sure what VIN will kick off convertible production.

It will be interesting to see if Rick Hendrick options his two 2014 Chevrolet Corvette Stingrays in the same way so that they are a matching set – provided that every chosen option is available for both the coupe and convertible. I would expect that Hendrick will have both equipped with the new 7-speed manual transmission to get the most out of the new LT1 V8 that will pack 450 horsepower and 450lb-ft of torque under the hood of both new Vettes. You would think that he would configure both new Corvettes to be as loaded as possible to help increase the future collector’s value of both cars – although the future value of having BOTH the first 2014 Stingray Coupe and the first Stingray Convertible will most certainly increase the value of the cars significantly.

Congratulations to Rick Hendrick on winning the right to win both the first 2014 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray Coupe and the first 2014 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray Convertible while effectively donating over $2 million dollars to the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute.