Ford Shelby Super Snake, Chevy Corvette sell at auction for $1M to aid Ukraine
A package sale of two American classic cars Friday raised $1 million for humanitarian relief in Ukraine.
The bidder got a 2009 Ford Shelby GT500 Super Snake signed by auto designer Carroll Shelby and a 1986 Chevrolet Corvette Pace Car Edition convertible during a Barrett-Jackson auction in Palm Beach, Florida.
Every dollar of the sale goes to aid Ukraine.
Samaritan's Purse, a nondenominational Christian organization that provides medical supplies, food, water, blankets and hygiene kits during international crises, is the recipient.
The winning bidder: NASCAR team owner Rick Hendrick, who paid $3 million two years ago for a 2020 Corvette Stringray he said he would never drive. His generosity on Friday inspired donations of at least $650,000 from others.
Corvette's yellow fits Ukraine's color scheme
The yellow Corvette was donated by Mark and Tetiana Pieloch of Vero Beach, Florida – who welcomed her mother, sister and niece this week after they fled their hometown of Kharkiv, Ukraine.
"I am just speechless," Tetiana Pieloch said after the auction as she began to cry while being interviewed at the auction site as part of the livestreamed event.
"We saw the devastation," Mark Pieloch told the Detroit Free Press in an earlier interview. "It's where Tetiana grew up, only 30 miles from the Russian border. Her town was attacked by the Russians. They ended up destroying her elementary school, her junior high, her high school."
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Family members, now refugees, fled from Ukraine to Poland to Germany to the USA, he said. They attended the auction, holding Ukrainian flags.
"Tetiana's dad is still there. Her mom's brother is still there. The cousins are still there," Mark said.
He said the Ukrainian landscape of sunflowers blooming against the blue sky reminded him of Kansas. The country is flat and grows barley and wheat in addition to producing sunflower seeds and sunflower oil.
A fortune made in animal health
Pieloch, who attended pharmacy school in Boston and earned an MBA from the University of Michigan, made his fortune inventing and patenting soft, chewable medication for dogs, cats and horses sold through veterinary hospitals globally.
He owns the American Muscle Car Museum in Melbourne, Florida.
Tetiana Pieloch attended the MBA program at the Florida Institute of Technology, graduating in 2017. The couple have a 10-month-old son, Matthew.
The Corvette they donated to the auction is one of 735 built and has 9,325 miles on it.
Shelby Super Snake story
The Shelby Super Snake was donated by George Shinn, a former sports team owner.
Shinn told the Free Press the Super Snake was his two sons' favorite car in his collection. The 750-horsepower Super Snake in Vapor Silver Metallic has a supercharged V8 engine, 6-speed manual transmission and a composite hood, Barrett-Jackson said.
"One night, about 4 o'clock in the morning, I was sound asleep, and I hear my wife in a very calm gentle voice say, 'Are you awake?' Of course, that kind of shook me. I said, 'I am now. Are you OK?' She said she was thinking about all the craziness going on with (Russian President Vladimir) Putin and Russia and the Ukrainian people. She said, 'You need to give them some money.' That's how this came about," Shinn said from his winter home in Stuart, Florida. "I said, 'If you let me go back to sleep, I'll get right on this.' And in the morning, I made the call."
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Shinn's riches didn't come easily.
When George was 8, his father had a stroke and died at age 51. The elder Shinn owned and ran a Gulf service station and had big plans, but his widow lost everything, including their home, to debt.
Gary Patterson, president of Shelby American, was not surprised that Shinn was involved with the push to help Ukraine.
Parting with Shinn's "really cool" Super Snake had to be hard, Patterson said.
"But the guy … has been very big on charities and giving back," Patterson said. "These are collectable cars, and this one is unique, in silver and black. It has been really well cared for."
Shinn's story: From welfare to Charlotte Hornets
"Somebody who never had been through stuff couldn't comprehend," Shinn said. "When we were struggling, the way we finally had to survive, we got welfare checks from the government. I got hand-me-down clothes. I got free lunches all the way through high school. I know what it's like to be poor."
He worked all his life to reach the point where he could bring an NBA team, the Hornets, to Charlotte, North Carolina.
"I grew up in a little town called Kannapolis, North Carolina, and I went to work in a cotton mill where they make towels, sheets and pillowcases," he said. "I'm a little guy. I was hauling rolls of cloth to what they call the bleachery – dye them and bleach them out. But then I started having back problems from lifting."
Everything changed after he enrolled in Evans Business College in Concord in hopes of getting an office job.
"This is where I feel God was opening a door for me," Shinn said. "I couldn't have gotten a scholarship with my bad school record. I had a ’57 Corvette I sold to pay for my tuition. But then I ran out of money."
He went to the school president and said he'd need to drop out. He became a janitor to earn his tuition.
"One Saturday, I just finished cleaning up the school, and I was at the end of the hall, and I heard somebody knocking on the door," he said, "and I just peeked around the corner, and ... there were two real cute girls there. So I decided I'd go see what they want. The door was locked, and I unlocked the door."
The women said they wanted to enroll and asked whether he worked there.
“I said, ‘Yes, I do. Can I help you?’” Shinn said. "I didn't tell her what I did. I showed them around the school that had changed my life. It was easy for me to sell something I really believed in."
He gave them applications, a school catalog, told them to come back with money and they'd really enjoy the school.
The women returned to sign up and wanted to talk to "Mr. Shinn." The school secretary didn't recognize the name. The school president realized it was the student janitor. He pulled Shinn out of accounting class to greet the women, accept their payments (and their hugs). After that, he was promoted to recruiter, bringing in more students than all four of the full-time recruiters his first year, Shinn said proudly.
He went on to recruit for five business schools, in which he became a partner, and after the owner died, he took over the operation, Shinn said. He sold the schools for many millions.
$100,000 apiece
Shinn and Pieloch each pledged $100,000 of the $650,000 raised for aid to Ukraine after the cars sold. The men announced their gifts from the auction podium.
Craig Jackson, CEO of Barrett-Jackson, said he wanted to add another $100,000, and so did Steve Davis, president of Barrett-Jackson. People in the audience shouted $100,000 and $50,000 in individual donations before the auction moved on to other cars.
"Never have we had in my lifetime a war like what's going on," Jackson said. "This is just horrifying for anybody who loves democracy and humanity. We really want to help. We've got to get these people out of harm's way."
Members of Tetiana Pieloch's family left the crowd cheering for Ukraine.
Contact Phoebe Wall Howard: 313-618-1034 or phoward@freepress.com