A 70-year-old Mercedes raced by the likes of Juan Manuel Fangio and Stirling Moss has smashed the file for the costliest Components 1 automotive ever offered.
A W196R from the 1955 season, in closed-wheel ‘Streamliner’ configuration, offered for €51.155 million (£42.7m) at public sale. It was auctioned by RM Sotheby’s on the Mercedes museum in Stuttgart, Germany.
Its sale worth is greater than double that of the earlier record-holder, one other W196, which raced in 1954. That automotive offered for £19.6m in 2013.
The brand new record-holder was final raced by Moss on the Italian Grand Prix in 1955. Mercedes constructed completely different configurations of its W196 for various circuits, favouring the ‘streamlined’ model for the quickest tracks.
Nonetheless the involvement of a Mercedes in a crash on the 1955 Le Mans 24 Hours, which killed scores or spectators, led the producer to withdraw from motorsport on the finish of that yr. It didn’t return to grand prix racing till 2010. Mercedes donated the automotive to the IMS in 1965.
Regardless of greater than doubling the file worth for an F1 automotive, it fell wanting the best worth ever paid for an vehicle. That file is held by one other Mercedes, a roadgoing 300 SLR ‘Uhlenhaut’ Coupe, which a purchaser paid $142m for in 2022.
The marketplace for basic F1 automobiles has been very sturdy lately. A 2013 Mercedes of the sort utilized by Lewis Hamilton to attain his first grand prix victory offered for $18.8m (£15.1m) in 2023.
A big selection of basic F1 automobiles are on account of go on sale later this yr because the collection’ former CEO Bernie Ecclestone is because of promote his assortment which incorporates uncommon Ferraris and different well-known machines. His whole assortment is anticipated to promote for a nine-figure sum.
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