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After 40 years of neglect, a dilapidated jet that once belonged to Elvis Presley has a new lease on life.
The 1962 Lockheed 1329 JetStar traded hands at the Mecum Kissimmee Collector Car auction in Florida back in January of 2023 for $240K. Elvis Presley bought the jet on December 22, 1976, just shy of eight months before his death. It featured six red velvet passenger seats. Elvis paid $840K.

Its new owner, James Webb of “Jimmy’s World” on YouTube, transported the jet more than 1,600 miles from Roswell, New Mexico, to Plant City, Florida, where he performed the painstaking process of repurposing it. On Wednesday July 17, 2024, visitors of the Bass Pro Shop at the Pyramid in Memphis got the opportunity to tour the King of Rock and Roll’s former 1962 Lockheed Jetstar.


Other interesting stuff re the Lockheed JetStar
The JetStars were all designed before computers and all work was done on a blackboard and with a slide rule.


After approval, the first plane flew 8 months away as promised by Kelly Johnson of the Skunk Works. Of the 206 JetStars built, only 15 or so were actually delivered to the Air Force inventory. The rest were purchased by individuals and corporations who needed trans-continental and trans-oceanic transportation.

Note: My interest in the JetStar began in 1969 when I became an employee of Lockheed-Georgia in the avionics development section for the C-5 cargo plane. This section was located isolated in an area that was next to a hangar that housed the JetStars that were owned by Howard Hughes. One of the planes was always kept outside the hangar with a 24 hour guard on duty. I saw that JetStar every day that I entered the gate to that area of the company. It was an intriguing story to me.

The aircraft's original purpose was to compete in a competition to provide a general Utility Transport Category plane for the Air Force. It was designed by the celebrated Lockheed Skunk Works in the late 1950s, which was at the time under the incredibly intuitive genius of Kelly Johnson. Johnson was the brains behind many aircraft, from the P-80 Shooting Star to the U-2 spy plane, as well as the awesome A-12, which in turn morphed into the incredible SR-71 Blackbird. These planes were all designed before computers and all work was done on a blackboard and with a slide ruler. The plane was designed with every back-up system of a Boeing 707 and the initial pilot training took 6 months to teach them to think fast enough and far enough ahead in anticipation of the plane's needed inputs

There is another side to the JetStar: its commercial history. Of the 206 JetStars built, only 15 or so were actually delivered to the Air Force inventory. The rest were purchased by individuals and corporations who needed trans-continental and trans-oceanic transportation. The earliest planes went to the likes of the Vanderbilts, the Shah of Iran and a myriad of Fortune 500 companies. The JetStar also became a favorite of many entertainment legends, including the likes of Howard Hughes, Bob Hope and Elvis Presley. Presley dubbed his “The Hound Dog”. Howard Hughes personally piloted his JetStar around the world. Howard Hughes owned several keeping them in a hangar at Lockheed in Marietta, GA. Other owners included Mario Andretti, Wayne Newton, and the plane was in the movie Goldfinger.




This C-140B-LM, S/N 62-4201, was manufactured by Lockheed Corporation in Marietta, Georgia, and delivered to the USAF on 3 July 1963. This restored plane resides at the Hill Aerospace Museum, a military aviation museum located at Hill Air Force Base in Roy, Utah.

"During the restoration, something very interesting happened. While closing the air stair door a chip of white paint flaked off and we found the one-of-a-kind Air Force blue paint that indicates Presidential usage. We then had some individuals who had worked on the plane at the 89th SAM Wing at Andrews AFB come by and they confirmed that both President Johnson and Lady Bird used the plane extensively. The aircraft was re-painted in Presidential livery and moved inside a gallery so the cockpit and interior would be available to the public for viewing."