It was a red hot sale!
A vintage Redbird subway car the city put up for auction fetched nearly a quarter-million dollars after bidding closed Friday.
The winner offered $235,700 for the transit artifact, 47 bids later after the city’s Department of Citywide Administrative Services launched the online sale at a $6,500 starting price.
A mystery railfan with the account name “HOUSE32” came out on top, but DCAS did not have more information to share on the buyer Sunday.
The transaction is not yet final and the train buff has five business days to pay up, according to agency spokesperson Anessa Hodgson.
The buyer also has to take the 51-foot, 36-ton car “as is” and “where is,” meaning they must arrange for transportation themselves, according to conditions of the sale.
City officials described the mid-century transit vehicle, dubbed #9075, as a “once in a lifetime opportunity to own a piece of history,” when it went up for sale on June 22.
The ye olde subway model has been living on a lawn outside Queens Borough Hall on Queens Boulevard and 82nd Avenue in Kew Gardens for nearly two decades.
The crimson car retired from passenger service in 2003 after four decades of carrying New Yorkers on what is now the No. 7 line, including bringing visitors to and from the 1964 World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows Corona Park.
Former Queens Borough President Helen Marshall bought the bruiser in 2005, sparing it from being sunk into the Atlantic Ocean to create barrier reefs along with other obsolete subway cars in the MTA’s fleet.
Marshall reportedly got #9075 for a steal at $1 and the late beep set it up as a visitors’ center on a patch of grass between Borough Hall and the Queens Criminal Court in 2005.
The outpost didn’t draw a lot of foot traffic, except of a few stray Queens residents on jury duty, due to it being far off the beaten path of most out-of-towners, and it closed its doors in 2015.
DCAS, which manages city properties and the municipal vehicle fleet, earlier this year also auctioned off an old Staten Island Ferry boat to “Saturday Night Live” cast members Colin Jost and Pete Davidson.
