For a car that stickers at one hundred thousand.
   
And you wonder how anyone that stupid ended up with that much money. 
   
So, would you be surprised to discover that the buyer got a heck of a deal, indeed a real bargain?
   
Here’s the key: the proceeds, you may recall, were to go to charity.  General Motors donated the car and Barrett-Jackson donated its commission.  Every penny of the price paid went to charity.
   
The Internal Revenue Service will treat the purchase price of the car as a charitable donation – to the extent that the purchase price exceeds the fair market value of the car itself.
   
Now, here’s the beauty of the deal:
   
The fair market value of the car will not be more than the sticker price, i.e., the manufacturer’s suggested list price.  Though it’s a certainty that many ZR1s will sell, at least initially, above sticker and that the very first one will arguably have special collector value, the IRS would never be able to establish that the car was actually worth more than list price.
   
So, as a practical matter, the buyer paid sticker price for the very first production ZR1.
   
A pretty good deal, all things considered.
   
Of course, this only works if you happen to be in a tax bracket where making million dollar charitable contributions makes economic sense or you’re just wealthy and generous enough that you’d be donating that much, anyway.
   
Still, most of the buyers at the Barrett-Jackson auction in Scottsdale overpay.  In fact, it’s conventional wisdom in the collector car market place that there are two prices for these cars, the Barrett-Jackson price and the real world market price. 
   
But the guy that bought the ZR1 wasn’t one of those who overpaid, at least not for that car.
   
He even got the car without having to pay a buyer’s premium.