‘Pawn Stars’ boss Rick Harrison drives NASCAR legend’s tribute car — still failed to close the deal

While many legends have appeared on “Pawn Stars,” only one of them holds 200 wins in the NASCAR Cup Series—none other than “The King”, Richard Petty. This happened when the show’s lead, Rick Harrison, was on a tour of America, and he came across a tribute car built in honor of the motorsports icon. When the owner of the car, Thomas, put a hefty price tag of $125,000 on it, Harrison even took it for a spin. Although the pawn shop boss made a bold bid for the car, he failed to bag it in the end.

In the episode, Thomas drove the car to Harrison, proudly praising it. While the number 43 Pontiac wasn’t one of Petty’s original race cars, Thomas explained that it was a replica of Petty’s 1984 car in which he got his 200th NASCAR win. “As far as NASCAR goes, there’s no one like Richard Petty. Over 1,000 races, won 200 of them and seven championships,” Harrison remarked as he admired the car. The owner added that while the original 1984 car was donated to the Smithsonian, he built the tribute car out of his love and admiration for the racing legend. “We actually, by happenstance, found the original car builder that built Richard’s car,” he told Harrison.

He shared that the car had a small-block Chevrolet engine and even had Petty’s autograph on the dashboard. Before taking the car for a spin, Harrison asked for the price. Thomas said that he was looking to get $125,000 for the car. “We can sort of kill two birds with one stone. I’d like my buddy to take a look at it,” Harrison said as he drove the car to the Petty Museum.

It was the exact replica of the legendary record-setting 1984 car. The signature on the dash was authentic as well, which gave Harrison the green signal to make an offer.

Harrison got straight to business and made a lowball offer of $80,000. “Oh, gosh, kind of really solid on that $125,000,” Thomas replied. Harrison made one final attempt by going up to $90,000, but Thomas jokingly said his wife would kill him if he took that, so the deal fell apart. Despite having a lot of cars, the seller decided to keep the tribute car.