Someone Paid $1.9 Million for the Risky Business Porsche 928

Risky Business has a lot going for it. The 1983 comedy's legacy made Tom Cruise a movie star and gave the world the "Old Time Rock and Roll" scene, but its biggest cultural contribution might be its rehabilitation of the Porsche 928's image. The movie re-defined the 928 as the perfect early 80s performance grand tourer, the car that can escape in a daring chase that was more than worth saving from water damage after an untimely sinking. Three cars were used in filming, but most of the filming was done with one specific 1979 928. That car sold at a Barrett-Jackson auction yesterday for $1.98 million.

It may seem like an excessive price for any 928, let alone a '79 base model that would have otherwise be destined for diamond-in-the-rough status on Craigslist, but the cultural impact of the car is even larger than it seems. Not only is this one of two cars used while filming the chase scene, a producer stated in a documentary about the car that this is the car Tom Cruise was taught to drive a manual transmission in. That led Cruise to a brief and memorable racing career, a starring role in Days of Thunder, and decades of memorable chase scenes in a wide variety of action movie. It led this 928 to years of touring museums and an unmatched provenance as the world's most famous 928.