Let's make one thing very clear from the beginning! This truck is out of my league. It's also out of my bankroll! The folks at Worldwide Auctions held a nice little car auction in Riyadah, Saudi Arabia during two months of car events there this past November-December. Some celebrities were on hand to help press the flesh and oh yeah a semi -truck, named Thor was sold sight unseen. It sold for $13.2 MILLION dollars.
Now if you have followed any of my past reviews of car auctions, you realize most auction houses tack on a commission to both the seller and buyer when a sale is made. The buyer originally won the bidding on this rig with a final price of $12 million dollars. So the auction house tacked on a 10% commission to the buyer, resulting in the final selling price of $13.2 million. AND they presumably subtracted a 10% commission from the proceeds, before passing it on to the seller, so he took home to Arizona $10.8 million while the auction house for one sale of one vehicle took home $2.4 million dollars!
Now this truck sale set several records. Highest selling truck, highest selling tractor trailer big rig, and highest selling custom vehicle. So let's get to it and check out Thor.
This started as a 1979 Peterbuilt 359 crew cab. But then owner Mike Harrah, who has business interests in Southern California and Arizona, opted to install two V-12 Detroit diesel engines with each engine displacing 852 CI. But he didn't stop there. No sir, he added twelve superchargers along with nitrous to boost the horsepower to a stated nearly 4,000 HP. Of course he had to stretch the frame to 44 feet to accommodate all that engine power. And just for giggles he plunked four drag chutes onto the rear end to supplement the disc brakes. Which might come in handy when slowing down this 32,000 pound beast. And beside the traditional smokestacks, the engine offers 24 zoomies to port out the exhaust.
The rig maintained the typical hookup and hoses to actually haul a trailer if one wished. Just about every part that could be chromed or polished was, in this gleaming, Arizonan titled, street legal machine. The truck even sports a majestic Norse mural on the backside for admiring glances. The owner claimed it took seven years and seven million dollars to build. Which means he either did this as a labor of love and determination, or knew that there would be at least two people who really, really, really wanted Thor.
Beside the exterior, the cab features a gazillion switches, gauges and dials. To allow for some styling on the highway Thor has a sun roof. The sound system was 1500 watts of throbbing sound and seven video monitors. It takes an auxiliary power unit from a Hawker Jet helicopter to provide all the power for this rig. The custom front grill is reminiscent of a 1933 Ford and there are enough skulls, daggers and mythical figures embedded in the Peterbuilt to keep a CPA busy counting them for a week.
Ironically this rig did not journey to the Middle East and the bidders had to rely on pictures when bidding! Even stranger, the auction house only reportedly sold four cars out of 120 in the auction catalog. But hey if you can sell just this one, maybe it wasn't all bad. Now you can take a look at these pictures and let me know if you would have bid $12+ million!
Pictures courtesy of Worldwide Auctions
(c) 2020 Mark C. Bach
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