Sold for £115m, Mona Lisa of cars

FOR a company car, it has a little more cachet than a Ford Focus.

This rare Mercedes-Benz has become the world’s most expensive car after selling at auction for £115million.

The 300 SLR Uhlenhaut coupe – the ‘Mona Lisa of cars’ – is one of just two of its kind to still exist, from a total of nine built.

While its open-top sister car was used to break speed records by racing legend Sir Stirling Moss, the 1955 coupe was used as a runaround by Mercedes’ chief designer at the time, Rudolf Uhlenhaut.

The two-seater was the first to feature the ‘gullwing’ doors which became a Mercedes signature, and has been in the firm’s collection of most cherished vehicles.

A private collector paid the record – more than double the £52million for a 1962 Ferrari four years ago – at a Sotheby’s auction at the German firm’s museum in Stuttgart. The cash will help set up a fund offering environmental scholarships.

British dealer Simon Kidston secured the car for the collector after months of lobbying the firm. He said: ‘It had been assumed Mercedes

would never part with one of its crown jewels of its collection, considered the Mona Lisa of cars because of its rarity, racing pedigree, beauty and unavailability.’

Work of art: The 300 SLR with its gullwing doors and, below, Stirling Moss in the open-top version