Inside the one-off Porsche that sold in Monterey for a record $3.6m

There is perhaps no grander display of conspicuous consumption than Monterey car week, where billions of dollars in new and classic automobiles gather to be admired — and many sold to the highest bidder. This year, one of the highest hammer prices went to the Porsche Sally Special, a custom-designed 992-generation Porsche 911 created in partnership with the creatives behind Pixar’s 2006 film Cars. Proceeds from the auction will go to charities that support girls and women, as well as Ukranian refugees.

“First we had to decide with the Pixar people what the base of the car was,” says Grant Larson, Porsche designer and director of special projects. “The original Sally was based on a 996, but to bring her into the present day, we decided the GTS with a manual transmission would be the most fitting to the character.”

Larson and the Pixar team worked with Porsche Exclusive Manufaktur, the brand’s personalisation division, whose Sonderwunsch programme allows for highly-customised versions of their customer cars.

Beginning with the exterior paint, designers worked to create a shade of blue that was highly metallic, which had to be mixed and applied by hand. “It’s not a PTS (paint-to-sample) colour, it’s made especially for this car. It looks just like Sally in the film with this gorgeous pearlescent tone to it,” Larson explains.

Exterior pieces that are normally done in black on the 992 were painted body colour, including the lower front air intakes, rear diffuser, and grille slats on the engine cover. “The 992 has many more black surfaces, and by painting many of these it gives the car a bespoke element,” says Larson. Another Easter egg includes Sally’s “tattoo”, visible when the rear wing is up.

“But we’re not just talking about a colour and trim car, we also gave the car its own one-of-a-kind wheel because we say wheels always make the car,” Larson explains. In this case, we interpreted some of Pixar’s sketches to do a reinterpretation of the directional 996 wheel, but more fitting to the form language of the 992.”

For the interior, designers had to start with a blank sheet of paper. “The original Sally never had an interior, so we had to put our heads together and come up with something all new,” Larson tells Car Design News. “When she left the standard production line, everything was pulled apart and refined. Nothing was left untouched.”

Porsche enthusiasts will recognise the Pepita pattern on the seats, done for Sally in a tri-colour execution in black, Chalk, and Speed Blue. Leather trim and decorative stitching is done in Chalk, and Speed Blue accents include cross-stitching on the doors and IP, as well as the graphics on the shifter knob. The lower part of the IP and centre console are painted in body colour, and a sketch of the original Sally appears on the passenger’s side of the dash, with the words “Sally Special” and numbering 1 of 1.

In a cheeky nod to the film, the drive mode button on the steering wheel reads “Kachow Mode,” a nod to the catchphrase uttered by Sally’s love interest, Lightning McQueen. Larson tells us that these are some of more than 35 Sonderwunsch options found on the car. In addition, he says many suppliers pitched in with their time and talents to make the car happen quickly because of its philanthropic aspect.

The morning Sally was to hit the auction block, Laura Burstein got to sit in the car with Larson and rev the engine — the last time someone would goose the throttle before the car would go to her new owner. Later that night, the Sally Special sold at auction house RM Sothebys for a jaw-dropping $3.6 million to a yet-unnamed telephone bidder. Proceeds will go to Girls Inc., an advocacy group for girls and young women, as well as the USA for UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, to provide aid to children and their families affected by the conflict in Ukraine.

Pixar’s creative director Jay Ward summed up after the auction what Grant and other Porsche executives felt: “The reaction has been nothing short of amazing.”