A rare “silver arrow” racing car from Mercedes-Benz from 1954 was auctioned in Stuttgart for 46.5 million euros. At the auction of the auction house RM Sotheby’s in the Mercedes-Benz Museum, the contract went to a bidder who took part in the auction by telephone, as was seen in a live stream of the auction house. In addition to the sales price, there are still fees and taxes for the buyer. According to the auction house, the total purchase price amounts to 51.16 million euros.
According to the car maker, the Mercedes-Benz tromlining car of the W 196 R series is one of four known, completely preserved specimens of the racing car.
According to Mercedes-Benz, the now auctioned vehicle was driven by two well-known racing drivers. In January 1955 Juan Manuel Fangio won the Grand Prix of Argentina in Buenos Aires with the car. The British racing driver Stirling Moss completed the fastest round of the race with the 290 hp racing car at the Grand Prix of Italy in Monza.
For a long time in the museum in Indianapolis at home
In 1965, Mercedes gave the vehicle to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum, which, according to the auction, wants to finance the collection and the restoration work of the museum.
The most expensive car in the world is far from the “silver arrow”. In 2022, Mercedes-Benz had auctioned only two copies of the 300 SLR Uhlen skin coupé for 135 million euros. The car from 1955, named after the engineer Rudolf Uhlenhaut, was the most expensive car, according to Mercedes.