While the bonkers 2016 Shelby GT350R won't go on sale until late 2015 for the 2016 model year, the first production unit bearing VIN 001 was already sold to its owner during Barrett-Jackson's collector car auction->ke2845 held in Scottsdale, Arizona over the weekend. The happy customer, who remained anonymous, won't be able to drive his GT350R sooner than the muscle car's->ke507 scheduled production timeline, but he already paid a cool $1 million for the lightweight fastback. All proceeds will be donated JDRF, the country’s leading global organization funding type-1 diabetes research.

If all this sounds familiar it's because Ford->ke31 initially wanted to donate a standard GT350, but at the last minute decided to replace it with the more hardcore GT350R, a version introduced a few days earlier at the 2015 Detroit Auto Show. The GT350R fetched more than the first production 2015 Mustang, which sold for $300,000, and attracted more moolah than the first production 2014 Chevrolet Camaro Z/28 ($650,000) and 2015 Corvette Z06 Convertible ($800,000) as well. In fact, the GT350R was as expensive as the first 2015 Corvette Z06 Coupe, which also hammered for $1 million.

In addition to a check with six zeroes, JDRF received an extra $150,000 from two anonymous donors.

The 2016 Shelby GT350R will go on sale in the fourth quarter of 2015 with an estimated starting prices of more than $60,000. The owner of the VIN 001 car, who paid about 16 times the price of a regular model, will be able to option the muscle car with any available colors and packages.

Click past the jump to read more about the Ford Shelby GT350R Mustang.

Why it matters

While paying $1 million for a Ford Mustang, be it a Shelby-badged monster with track skills and carbon-fiber wheels, seems like a crazy thing to do, the amount is less spectacular if achieved during an auction event. Deep-pocketed collectors are known to throw big bucks at first production cars, with Rick Hendrick, who acquired all first production version of the C7 Corvette, being the perfect example. I have no clue who took the keys to the first GT350R to leave Dearborn later this year, but I applaud him for helping out an organization such as JDRF. The same appreciation goes out to Ford as well, who donates vehicles for charity auctions on a yearly basis.

Ford Shelby GT350R Mustang

The 2016 Shelby GT350R is the most hardcore incarnation of the sixth-generation Mustang yet, as well as the most track-focused Ford-badged muscle car ever created as of 2015. 130 pounds lighter than the standard GT350 thanks to its no-nonsense interior and carbon-fiber wheels -- the latter making Ford the first major automaker to offer such items on a production car -- the GT350R gets its juice from the company's all-new, 5.2-liter, flat-plane-crank V-8. Rated at more than 500 horsepower and 440 pound-feet of torque, it's the first-ever production V-8 from Ford with a flat-plane crankshaft, as well as the most powerful naturally aspirated engine the blue oval has ever produced.