Billionaire Bill Gates’ 1979 Porsche fetches $80k at auction

London: A 1979 Porsche 911 Turbo, which was once owned by Bill Gates has been sold for just under 80,000 dollars - up to 30,000 dollars more than auctioneers guessed it would fetch.

The new owner, from Germany, bid over the telephone to snap up the pearlescent turquoise Turbo model, after staff at the Vienna-based Dorotheum Auction House estimated that the car was worth between 48,495 dollars and 62,173 dollars. “There was enormous interest in this item from all over the world,” the Daily Mail quoted spokesman Wolfgang Humer as telling the Austrian Times. According to the newspaper, the car was one of the first rewards the software giant bought himself after founding Microsoft in 1975. He had apparently sold it in the 1990’s. Dorotheum Auction House said that the vehicle came complete with letters to and from Microsoft and Porsche and the original Washington State USA registration documents. Its 3.3-liter, 300-HP engine has been completely overhauled and renovated. The 56-year-old billionaire relinquished his position as the world’s richest man in 2010 after giving away one third of his personal wealth to charity. In the 10-plus-car garage at his Medina, Washington mansion, Gates stores another Porsche among other expensive vehicles. “I drive myself around town in a normal Mercedes. I’ve had a Lexus,” he said. “The family has a Porsche, which is a nice car that we sometimes take out. We have a minivan and that’s what we use when it’s the five of us,” he said. Forbes Magazine estimated Gates’ net worth at 61 billion dollars last March. ANI