Race cars cross the auction block all the time, usually hammering away for reasonable, working-class motorsport sums. Every now and then, however, the collector market suffers a collective bout of madness. This time, there’s a 1987 Ford Sierra RS500 Cosworth that might actually command a staggering $600,000.
This isn’t just some random boy-racer Sierra someone welded a roll cage into. This particular homologation special carved out a serious name for itself in the brutal world of Group A touring car racing. It happens to be the very first of just six Sierras built by Dick Johnson Racing (DJR), a team owned and operated by the legendary Australian driver himself.
This machine successfully traded paint across both hemispheres, kicking off its career at Calder Park Raceway in Victoria, Australia, before eventually wrapping things up in the British Touring Car Championship. Along the way, motorsport royalty like John Bowe and Robb Gravett took the wheel. It also happens to be one of the pioneering red-and-yellow, Shell-sponsored racers that turned the RS500 Cosworth family into an instantly recognizable global icon.
Iconic Auctioneers is now looking to cash in on that nostalgia, putting the car under the hammer at the BRDC Classic during the historic Silverstone festival in late July.
Visually, the car looks ready to warp back to 1987. It is remarkably original, retaining its authentic three-door body, engine, gearbox, rear axle, nine-inch Harrop rear differential, and Eggenberger suspension. There is only one tiny catch: nobody has actually driven this beast hard in over a decade. It has essentially been treated like a high-end stamp collection. The auction house implies it runs.
Furthermore, if you happen to be the type of buyer who demands a pristine, multi-volume leather binder documenting every single nut and bolt, you might want to lower your expectations. The paperwork trail seems remarkably minimalist.
Iconic Auctioneers estimates this Sierra will fetch between £400,000 and £450,000. For American enthusiasts trying to calculate the absurdity of paying hypercar money for a boxy Ford, that translates to roughly $533,000 to $600,000. It won’t break global records, but if you slap enough vintage Shell stickers on an old British touring car, the market will happily treat it like a Ferrari.
