Car that Mercedes vowed never to sell smashes auction record
Mystery bidder pays £115m for ‘Mona Lisa of vehicles’ that was based on Moss’s record-breaking 300 SLR
A 1950s MERCEDES-BENZ based on Stirling Moss’s Mille Miglia-winning 300 SLR has become the most expensive automobile ever sold.
The coupé sold for €135 million (£115million) and was modelled on the racing car that Moss used to break the Italian endurance event record in 1955.
Simon Kidston, who is a leading international classic car dealer, as well as being a collector, commentator and journalist, spent 18-months lobbying Mercedes-benz on behalf of a client to hold the sale.
Mr Kidston was the one who made the winning bid, on behalf of the client who chose to remain anonymous.
“If you had asked classic car experts and top collectors over the past half a century to name the most desirable car in the world, there’s a good chance that they would have come up with the same model: the Mercedes-benz 300 SLR,” said Mr Kidston.
The auction took place on May 5, with bidders hand-picked by the German carmaker.
The 1955 vehicle was put up for auction despite Mercedes-benz previously being adamant that it would never be sold. It is one of a pair of automobiles that was built for the manufacturer with no intention of ever being made available to the public.
Mr Kidston said that refusal to sell had given the car part of its appeal.
“It’s a combination of exotic engineering, all-conquering racing history, the power of the three-pointed star on its nose and the fact that one had never, ever been sold. Many collectors had tried, all had failed.
“That was what the entire motoring world thought, but times change, and if you don’t ask, you’ll never know.”
Speaking about his personal lobbying efforts, he said: “A long-standing relationship with the Mercedes-benz Museum helped, but even after 18 months of patient lobbying, we didn’t know if or how they would consider letting the 300 SLR out of captivity until just before it happened.
“For everyone involved, and especially the new owner whom we represented, this was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to buy the Mona Lisa of cars.”
The proceeds of the deal will be used by Mercedes-benz to set up a charitable fund for young people.
Rudolf “Rudi” Uhlenhaut, the British-german engineer and chief of motor sport at Mercedes-benz, commissioned two closed-cockpit versions of the car, which became known as Uhlenhaut coupés as a result.
The intention was for the vehicles to take part in the border-to-border Carrera Panamericana race in Mexico, for which the cars had to be road legal.
However, the race was permanently cancelled in 1955 following the Le Mans disaster in which 83 spectators and one driver were killed as a result of a crash involving an SLR. That same year, Mercedes-benz announced a withdrawal from all motor sport, which would last for 34 years.
Rather than ditching the coupé, Uhlenhaut turned it into a personal project, installing gull-wing doors to allow for the high-sill walls that were required for the unique “spaceframe” body and lightning-fast performance. A road test in 1956 showed that it could do 0-60mph in 6.9 seconds and 0-120mph in 20.3 seconds, with a maximum speed of 176mph.
The sale at the private auction earlier this month smashed the previous record price for a car, which is believed to be the £63million paid for a 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO in 2018.