A green 1994 Saab 900 SE that once belonged to John F. Kennedy Jr. drew nearly 30,000 dollars in online bidding by Wednesday afternoon, GQ reported.
Kennedy and his late wife, publicist Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, drove the turbocharged four-cylinder car around Lower Manhattan during the late 1990s. The vehicle features a leather interior and custom aqua-blue ski racks mounted to the roof.
Kennedy bought the car new from Zumbach Sports Cars in Manhattan for 29,841 dollars and 21 cents in the summer of 1994. He kept it until his death in 1999.
“What makes this lot so special is it’s not some Maserati or something flashy like that—it’s a practical car that was a part of his everyday life,” Bobby Livingston, executive vice president at RR Auction, told GQ. “For Kennedy, the choice of this car, as opposed to a Mercedes or something, speaks a lot to his style.”
The car remained parked at a Westchester home belonging to screenwriter Kevin J. Hynes following Kennedy’s fatal plane crash in 1999. Hynes worked with Kennedy at the New York DA’s office in the early 1990s.
Hynes purchased the vehicle from the Kennedy estate for 6,000 dollars in 2000. He sold it for 12,000 dollars two years later.
The third owner started the engine regularly, but the odometer sits at just 30,650 miles. The vehicle has not seen much road use in recent years.
The Saab carries a minimum sale price of 15,000 dollars. It is part of an RR Auction Fine Autographs and Artifacts sale.
“We’ve sold a Hummer that belonged to Tupac, and a Cadillac Escalade that was used by Tony Soprano in The Sopranos, but I didn’t know there would be such an affection for John F. Kennedy Jr.’s Saab,” Livingston told GQ.
Kevin J. Hynes, a screenwriter and friend of Kennedy’s who worked with him at the New York DA’s office in the early ’90s, entered the car into the auction after previously owning it.
The vehicle includes a custom set of aftermarket aqua-blue padded ski racks mounted to the roof alongside its factory turbocharged engine and leather interior.
The vehicle shows 30,650 miles on its odometer after years of limited road use.
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