Newman/Haas Racing was one of IndyCar’s preeminent teams of the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. Many, including myself, have fond memories of the Kmart-Havoline Lolas at the front of the CART field or the McDonald’s Dallara doing the same in Champ Car. Over the team’s history, it amassed 108 race wins and eight championships. Now, 39 of the team’s open-wheel cars as well as several other vehicles and pieces of memorabilia are going up for auction. RM Sotheby’s claims that is “the largest single collection of open-wheel racecars ever offered at auction.”
The collection named “The House That Newman/Haas Racing Built” features a truly stellar selection of racing cars from the team’s entire history. In chronological order, the first title-winning IndyCar available is the 1984 #3 Budweiser Lola-Cosworth T800. In the 1984 CART season, Mario Andretti won six races en route to claiming his final IndyCar championship.
The iconic black-and-white Kmart-Havoline Lolas from the 1991 and 1993 seasons are also featured. In 1991, Mario’s son and teammate Michael Andretti won over half the season’s race and took the only CART championship of his career. For the 1993 season, Newman-Haas signed reigning F1 champion Nigel Mansell and Mansell went on to win the CART title in his rookie season.
The auction also features a broad selection of cars from the 21st century, including Cristiano da Matta’s championship-winning all-black #1 Chevron Lola-Toyota from CART’s penultimate season in 2002. Most impressively, there’s a complete collection of Champ Cars from Sébastien Bourdais’ period of dominance, the three McDonald’s Lola-Cosworth-Fords and the McDonald’s Dallara-Cosworth DP01 from each of four championship-winning seasons between 2004 and 2007.
There are also three IndyCars from the team’s final years in the newly-unified IndyCar Series, including the #02 McDonald’s Dallara-Honda IR-05 driven by the late Justin Wilson in 2008. The other two cars are the #2 and #06 Dallara IR-05s driven by Oriol Servià and then-rookie James Hinchcliffe in the team’s final season in 2011. This collection represents an arguable priceless swath of American motorsport history. The auction is scheduled to take place on October 29, 2022.