Posted on 05/27/2017 4:16:27 PM PDT by EveningStar
A private jet once owned by Elvis Presley has been auctioned after sitting on a runway in New Mexico for 30 years.
The plane sold for $430,000 on Saturday at an Agoura Hills event featuring celebrity memorabilia, GWS Auctions Inc. said...
The auction house says Elvis designed the interior that has gold-tone woodwork, red velvet seats and red shag carpet. But the red 1962 Lockheed Jetstar has no engine and needs a restoration of its cockpit...
(Excerpt) Read more at dailynews.com ...
Holy Jeez, it looks like an airborn pimpmobile!
Elvis was never accused of having good taste in decorating.
If it is a Jetstar, it's going to need 4 engines, not an engine.
“Sitting on a tarmac in Roswell, New Mexico...”
ALIENS!
The Lisa Marie was the 1st private jet I was on...
Looking at those original planes on Google images, they were badass.
After Elvis gained all that weight, maybe the original engines weren’t powerful enough.
Darn it! Just the other day I was looking for a used Elvis jet ...
I’m sure they need to replace any leftover Peanut Butter and Butter sandwiches The King had yet to eat.
Looking at the picture, it isn’t just the engines that are missing. The entire nacelle is gone.
There used to be a sorry excuse for an aircraft museum next door to the plant where these were made. Maybe someone could get some parts from them. As I recall from driving past a few times, a lot of their displays weren’t complete planes, anyway. Not like anyone would miss a few more parts being gone. - Just looked on Google - they do have a JetStar like I remember. Looks like they’ve come up with some more parts for some of the planes - they don’t look nearly as bad as they did a few years ago when I drove by. http://www.mariettahistory.org/aviation-wing JetStar nacelle in right most picture.
Exactly. Almost all of the flight instruments have been stripped out of the cockpit. It will be a Herculean effort to restore this aircraft to even a semblance of flight appearance much less flight capability.
I read the auction blurb on this lot before the sale and they basically stated it would have to be dismantled and shipped to the buyer's destination. The auction house strongly implied that any buyer should plan on doing restoration as a tourist attraction, not as an air worthy aircraft. The auction estimate was a very exaggerated $2.5 million to 53.5 million. It brought only $430,000 plus an 18% auction premium, IIRC.
Now you know. . . Elvis was an alien. . .
Register it as an Experimental and put any damn engine on it that you want.
The FAA ( & the EAA ) closed the door on that kind of stuff a number of years ago now. Putting an Auto Engine in a Certified aircraft or hacking up an old Tri-Pacer to make it your "STOL Special" can't be done straight Experimental anymore. "Experimental Exhibition" is what you'd have to register it in. More restrictive, some say, do your due diligence, your mileage may very.
Is the "Experimental Exhibition" certificate the official "Hold my beer and watch me while I try this" category of registration?
Judging by the condition of that runway, that wasn’t a problem. I am wondering who had that plane between 1977, when Elvis died and 1987 when it was abandoned.
LOL! No, however it is a more restrictive form of "Experimental" Category. It is to showcase your innovation etc, however I think anytime you fly or want to go somewhere ( airshow display ) your supposed inform the local FAA (FSDO) you are going vs Experimental where you fly off your 50 initial hrs and you follow the Experimental rules from then on. That gets to be a pain for them, so at somepoint either they let you go or I have heard sometimes they have changed designations from E.E. to just E.
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