The car in question is chassis number 3,765, which was the only GTO Tipo to be raced by Scuderia Ferrari. It was driven by Mike Parkes and Lorenzo Bandini at the 1962 24 Hours of Le Mans race, and also took a class win and second-place finish at the Nurburgring 1,000km in the same year. This 250 came onto the market after belonging to its previous owner for a whopping 38 years.
1. 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupe
Auction: RM Sotheby’s, Stuttgart, 2022
Price: $135,000,000 (estimated)
One of two 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupes, this car was sold at an exclusive, invite-only auction at the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart, Germany, for an incredible £135million.
Incredibly, the starting bid for this German racer was higher than the second-place Ferrari 250 GTO’s winning bid. Bought by a private seller, the 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupe was named after its creator and chief engineer, Rudolf Uhlenhaut, who drove the car to European events. It was owned by Mercedes from new, covering only 3,756 miles in seven decades.
While neither 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupe was raced, they did feature an upgraded 302bhp 3.0-litre straight-eight taken from the iconic two-time Grand Prix World Championship-winning W196 R, driven by Juan Manuel Fangio.
More of the world’s most expensive cars sold at auction
Ferrari 410 Sport – 2014, $23,000,000
Aston Martin DBR1 – 2017, $22,550,000
Ferrari 410 Sport Spider – 2022, $22,005,000
Ferrari 290 MM – 2018, $22,005,000
Duesenberg SSJ – 2018, $22,000,000
Jaguar D-Type – 2016, $21,780,000
Aston Martin DP215 – 2018, $21,455,000
McLaren F1 – 2021, $20,465,000
McLaren F1 LM – 2019, $19,805,000
Alfa Romeo 8C Lungo Spider – 2016, $19,800,000
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