The iconic 1949 Buick Roadmaster convertible from the Oscar-winning film Rain Man starring Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffmann was sold for $170,500. Heritage Auctions sold off the car on Dec. 15 in Dallas, Texas, Daily Mail has reported. The bidding started at $80,000.
The car, which was one of two used in the film, also had a modified rear suspension to hold the extra weight of the camera equipment plus the cameraman who shot the action from the trunk. The buyer of the car is identified only as an anonymous collector.
‘Rain Man’ famously tells the story of Charlie Babbitt, a selfish yuppie of questionable ethics played expertly by Cruise, who learns that his estranged father has died and bequeathed his entire fortune to his other son, Raymond, an autistic savant brilliantly portrayed by Hoffman. All that Cruise’s character gets from his father are his prized rosebushes and the car.
“Cruise’s Charlie Babbitt is a high-end car salesman and the 1949 Buick figures large in his life as the one car he never got to drive as he was forbidden from it by his father,” said Margaret Barrett, Director of Entertainment & Music Memorabilia at Heritage.
“Once he and Hoffman connect, they set off on a cross-country adventure in the car, which is in virtually every scene, and the rest is Hollywood history,” she said in a statement.
“This is a plum prize for the buyer,” Barrett adds. “It’s one of the great screen-featured automobiles from the 1980s, from one of the best films of the decade, besides being a prime example of one of America’s greatest classic cars.”
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