The auction house GWS Auctions conducted the auction in California, but the plane is on a runway in New Mexico and is grounded, due to the engine and cockpit being in need of restoration.
It isn’t known who bought the 1962 Red Lockheed Jetstar plane. According to the auction house, it was the king of rock ‘n’ roll himself who designed the interior, made with gold-tone wood, and plush, red velvet seats. Elvis co-owned the plane with his father, Vernon Presley.
Its fame is legendary, being the scene of Elvis’ late night flight from Memphis to Denver, Colorado, together with a number of Memphis lawmen, and members of Elvis’ entourage, known as the ‘Memphis Mafia’; their mission, to purchase and consume 30 ‘Fools Gold’ sandwiches from the Colorado Mine Company restaurant.
Each sandwich was a whole, hollowed-out, deep-fried loaf of white bread, filled with the contents of one jar of creamy peanut butter, one jar of grape jelly, and a pound (453 grams) of bacon.
For the last 35 years, the plane has been in private ownership, and stored in a ‘plane-bone-yard’, a flight strip in Roswell, New Mexico. A former owner, Roy McKay, claims it wasn’t Elvis, but he, who was responsible for the design of the aircraft’s interior.
He says the plane was coloured in two gray tones, and when he bought it, it ‘looked like a coffin’. The aviation authorities have no record of internal changes to the aircraft.
August the 16th of this year marks 40 years since Elvis Presley died at the age of 42.
Source: NTB scanpix / Norway Today