$29.6 million Mercedes is most expensive car sold at auction

A Mercedes-Benz race car sold for nearly $30 million at the Goodwood Festival of Speed early this morning, the highest sum paid for any car at auction.

The 1954 W196 Formula 1 racer sold to an unnamed collector for a staggering £19.6 million, or about $29.6 million at current exchange rates, according to Bonhams, the auction house that managed the sale.

While this W196 Formula 1 racer isn't at all a beauty like the 300SLR roadster that swept the Mille Miglia in 1955, none other than Juan Manuel Fangio took it to victory in the 1954 German and Swiss Grands Prix. Fangio, along with other greats such as Sir Stirling Moss, was key to the factory's successful post-war return to racing, and this very car helped him clinch his second of five Formula 1 championships.

Mercedes dominated circuit races and rallies throughout the 1950s by fielding incredible drivers and pioneering technologies – fuel injection, space frames, inboard disc brakes, independent suspensions – that made its cars nearly unbeatable. At Fangio's request, Mercedes converted the W196 into an open-wheeled configuration to better handle the tighter courses. The engine, a 2.5-liter inline-eight making 257 horsepower, was tilted to lower the car's height and center of gravity.

Much of the technology first seen on the W196 F1 car made it to the production 300SL "gullwing" coupe that same year, and while a few thousand of those coupes and roadsters were made and regularly sell for $1 million, Fangio's car is one of just nine to survive. Even with that pedigree and exclusivity – not to mention the bare aluminum body, which has just enough dents and imperfections to add a few more million – the price is a surprise.


Ferrari, Bugatti, Rolls-Royce and many other extinct brands of this era regularly go for millions each, but few cars crest into double-digit millions. In 2011, a 1957 Ferrari Testa Rossa race car sold for $16.4 million at the Pebble Beach Concours, which at the time was the most expensive car sold at auction.

Still, the W196 isn't the most expensive car ever sold. That honor, if you can call it that, goes to a green 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO that went for $35 million last year in a private sale.

The annual Goodwood Festival's claim to fame is gathering the world's most storied race cars and motorcycles over a single weekend in southern England – and running them on a short road course. More events continue through Sunday.

[Source: Bonhams]


Source: MSN