A Ford Thunderbird owned by Marilyn Monroe from 1955 to 1962 will be sold by Julien’s Auctions as part of its annual Hollywood Icons and Idols sale in Los Angeles on November 17.
The car, also to be offered live online, is expected to fetch up to $500000 (about R7.1million).
Soon after buying the Thunderbird, Monroe married writer Arthur Miller and reports suggest she and Miller drove the car to both their civil wedding ceremony on June 28, 1956 and the private wedding two days later. Her attachment to the car marginally outlasted her passion for the playwright, whom she divorced in 1961.
There was no doubting the car’s power though: that 225 horsepower V8 engine and top speed of 113mph (about 182km/* were impressive for that era. The “roadster” body with two-doors was designed to be Ford’s answer to the popular two-seater Chevrolet Corvette, but the Thunderbird featured more driver comfort and amenities as well as performance.
Monroe owned the car for six years until giving it as a birthday gift to John Strasberg, son of her acting mentor, Lee Strasberg and his wife Paula. Legal transfer took place just months before Monroe’s controversial suicide on August 5, 1962. Although not mentioned in Julien’s press release about the auction, the possibility that Monroe drove the T-Bird for some of her rumoured trysts with the two Kennedy brothers cannot be ruled out.
The Thunderbird created a sensation when it first appeared in 1955.
For more information about Julien’s Auctions, see www.juliensauctions.com