Monterey, CA – June 30, 2010 – Celebrating its 10th Anniversary this August 12-14, 2010 in Monterey, California located at the epicenter of historic, downtown Monterey, Russo and Steele has expanded to a three evening auction. Russo and Steele is known for offering some of the highest quality, most luxurious and historically significant collectable automobiles on the Monterey Peninsula; such as this 1971 AMC Javelin Mark Donohue Championship Winning Trans Am race car.
Penske Racing rose to glory as one of the most dominating teams in the history of motorsports beginning with the unbridled success of the Trans Am series in the mid-sixties by the Sports Car Club of America, better known as the SCCA. As automotive manufactures quickly understood the marketing value of this sport, factory support of this series heated to an intensity never witnessed before or since, captivating the soul of America and road racing enthusiasts worldwide.
The 1971 season saw the epic pinnacle of the evolution of many hard fought battles with the Penske team led by the legendary driver Mark Donohue at the helm of the most commanding group of victories in history. The Championship car fielded by Penske Racing embodied every “Unfair Advantage” that Donohue and Penske had garnered along the campaign including the Championship Camaro of the 1969 season, and losing by a heartbreakingly narrow margin in 1970. No Championship was won more convincingly than that of the AMC effort for 1971. As a testament, Donohue dominated so thoroughly in the Javelin that at Lime Rock his car was a full five laps ahead of the Second place Mustang driven by Tony DeLorenzo. Over an illustrious career, Mark Donohue endeared himself to fans and fellow competitors alike with a fiercely competitive nature while graciously melding engineer, driver and competitor into one entity that has never been since replicated.
Offered here is the very car that won the 1971 SCCA Trans-Am Championship with seven wins out of ten events. As the only car built by Penske for his 1971 campaign, engineered to be exclusively driven by Mark Donohue and the last Trans Am car driven by him, there is simply no match in the annals of professional motorsport. No other historically significant automobile embodies the truest spirit of American Road racing when “Race on Sunday – sell on Monday” pitted warriors such as Mark Donohue against near immortal drivers: Parnelli Jones, Jerry Titus, George Follmer, Dan Gurney and a host of other, equally notable combatants. Painstakingly restored to unaltered, period exacting standards by MAECO Motorsport, fully sorted and prepared with fresh mechanical components from T.O.E. Performance and maintained by McGee Motorsports, this – the ultimate pride of the muscle car era will be sold and entrusted to a new steward of ownership.