The world’s most expensive car is no longer a Ferrari 250. Instead, an ultra-rare Mercedes, owned by the manufacturer for its entire life and assumed never to be put up for sale, has raised €135m ($142m) at a secret auction held on May 5.
Built-in 1955, the car is a 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupe. Only two were produced and until now they were exclusively owned by Mercedes itself. Described as ‘the Mona Lisa of cars’, the 300 SLR Coupe is a sister car to the open-cockpit SLR driven by Sir Stirling Moss to victory at the 1955 Mille Miglia – a thousand-mile road race the Englishman completed in just over 10 hours.
The two examples of SLR Coupe are both finished in silver and referred to as Blue and Red in reference to their differing interiors. Blue, which will be retained by the factory, had appeared at the Mercedes-Benz museum its entire life, while Red, the car sold at auction, was mostly kept in storage and has covered just 6,000km from new.
Shortly after the development of these cars, Mercedes stopped its involvement in motorsports, so the cars were never used in competition.
Money from the sale will be used to establish the Mercedes-Benz Fund, a global scholarship fund.
According to forbes
