Upon his return from service with the Navy during WWII, Joe MacPherson took a job selling magazines door-to-door and, legend has it, so impressed one customer with his sales ability that he was offered a job selling cars for the man’s dealership. Those abilities soon led MacPherson to open his own car store, which became the foundation of an extensive automotive empire based in the multi-dealership auto center concept of which he was a pioneer.
His passion thus afforded him the opportunity to amass a broad collection of rare and historic vehicles, as well as significantly collectible memorabilia, that was eventually assembled under one roof at the aptly named Joe’s Garage located in Tustin, California.
With Joe’s passing last year, the decision was made to offer The MacPherson Collection at auction, and this past June RM Auctions put it on the block right there in the Garage itself. When the gavel had struck its final blow and the closing calculations made, every lot had been sold with the top price paid for a supercharged 1923 Miller 122 that had recorded several National Championship victories during the sport’s heady Board Track era. It sold for $2,035,000.
The second-highest sale price was paid for the Chrisman brothers’ Bonneville Coupe, an extensively modified 1930 Ford Model A that the brothers built with the purpose of setting records at Bonneville, which they did, going nearly 200mph in 1955. It fetched $660,000. Third place in the dollar derby was Dan Gurney’s original Eagle Indy car, chassis 201, that he drove—briefly—in the 1966 500. It drew a top bid of $528,000.
Rounding out the top five was a pair of classics from 1960, an ex-Len Sutton Watson-Offy roadster, the Bryant Heating and Cooling Special, that went for $495,000, and the Meskowski-Offy dirt champ car that A.J. Foyt drove to the first of his record 77 National Championship victories, which brought in $462,000.
