Owning an Indy 500-winning car will cost you millions; but you can see them for $15
You can buy an Indianapolis 500-winning car for between $1 million and $2 million.
But for a mere $15 you can see 40 Indy 500-winning cars in Indianapolis between the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum and the cars on display at Andretti Autosport and Chip Ganassi Racing. And last year's winner will be back on the track for Meyer Shank Racing.
There are also Indy 500-winning cars as far away as Japan (Honda Collection Hall), South Korea (Samsung Transportation Museum) and England (McLaren's Zak Brown). And, according to IndyStar research, they are in 11 other states, stretching from Washington D.C. (Smithsonian) to Florida (Revs Institute in Naples and Motorsports Hall of Fame in Daytona Beach) to Arizona (Penske Racing Museum) in the United States.
Jason Vansickle, the vice-president of curation and education at the IMS Museum, loves all 34 Indy 500-winning cars at the IMS Museum but if forced to pick his favorite, it's A.J. Foyt's Watson-Offenhauser that won the 1964 Indy 500. It's the last car to win the Greatest Spectacle in Racing with the engine in the front of the car.
"Foyt turned his attention to a rear-engine Lotus and put (the 1964 winner) to the side," Vansickle said. "Most cars (that win the Indy 500) are restored or changed but it has all the patina, the road rash and markings, from that final race in 1964; it was donated to the museum in 1966 in that condition.
"It's a time capsule."
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Sadly, 15 of the cars that won the Indianapolis 500 no longer exist, according to Vansickle's research; the last missing car is the 1938 winner. In the early years, there was no thought that the cars would have value as collectibles so they were often converted for other forms of racing, destroyed in crashes or raced until they were uncompetitive and junked.
IMS' collection ranges from the first winner -- the Marmon Wasp from 1911 -- to Jacques Villenueve's Reynard 95l-Ford from 1995. (The museum also has Alexander Rossi's Dallara DW12-Honda from the 2016 100th running on display on loan through a private owner, who bought the car for $1,127,500 in 2018.)
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The Daytona 500 winner has automatically gone on display at the Motorsports Hall of Fame in Daytona Beach, Fla. for a year but the Indy 500-winning car usually continues to race. In more recent years, teams keep their winning cars; Roger Penske owns 16 of his 18 Indy 500-winning cars, with Ganassi, Andretti and Foyt also holding on to some of their winners.
"In the 1980s, the winning 500 cars became desirable from a monetary standpoint," Vansickle said.
The museum purchased the 1986 winner in 2021; the first new addition since 1999. As a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization completely separate from IMS and Penske Entertainment Corp makes it difficult to acquire new cars these days.
But the IMS Museum has the largest collection of Indy 500 winners in the world. It was created in 1956 to honor Wilbur Shaw, who died in a plane crash in 1954, and opened with 12 cars on display. It moved to a new building in 1976 and currently features the Tony Hulman Theatre, a gallery of racing-themed art, a chance to get your photo taken in a real race car and a rotating series of exhibits.
Contact IndyStar Deputy Sports Editor Nat Newell at (317) 444-6182 or nat.newell@indystar.com. Follow him on Twitter: @NatJNewell.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indy 500: Where are the Indianapolis 500-winning cars?
