Pablo Escobar is arguably the most notorious drug kingpin in history, as the ruthless leader of Colombia’s Medellin Cartel amassed a fortune worth tens of billions of dollars by dominating the illegal cocaine trade in the 1970s and ‘80s. He was known for his excessive extravagances, like his infamous pet hippos that have since ballooned in population to become an invasive species in South America. One of Escobar’s best-known indulgences was cars, specifically race cars. And now, you have the chance to own one of the very cars the drug lord himself raced in.
Collecting Cars is offering a 1974 Porsche 911 Carrera 3.0 RSR IROC that briefly belonged to Escobar. This racing variant of Porsche’s most famous model was originally owned by motorsports legend Roger Penske, who enlisted Formula 1 Champion Emerson Fittipaldi to race it in the inaugural International Race of Champions (IROC) season. The car then had a second racing life after it was sold to race car driver John Tunstall, who ran it in several IMSA races, including the 24 Hours of Daytona. It was then Tunstall who sold the car to Escobar, who raced it himself in Colombia with the car wearing Porsche 935 bodywork. The car made its way back to the U.S. in the ‘90s and was eventually restored to its original form and 1974 specs. It’s powered by a 3.0L ”high-butterfly” flat-six Porsche racing engine that’s mated to a five-speed manual transmission, and it includes all of the stylistic touches that were included on IROC Porsche RSRs from ‘74.
With the rarity of the car — just 15 IROC RSRs were produced in 1974 — coupled with its racing lineage and notorious ownership, this Porsche is quite a find. Bidding on the car is currently sitting at $850,500 on Collecting Cars’ website as of this writing, with the auction set to close on October 7.
