Mobility

An auction at the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart (Germany) broke a record for an F1 car. A Streamliner W196 driven by Manuel Fangio and Stirling Moss fetched over €50 million. 

A beautiful car driven by motorsport legends in the premier class. That's the winning cocktail of the 1955 Mercedes W196 R Streamliner chassis no. 9, which became the most expensive F1 car in history on the weekend of February 2025. Sold for the benefit of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum, this collector's item was acquired by telephone. The hammer of RM Sotheby's auctioneer fell at €51.155 million ($53,917,370). This buyer will now be able to touch the car that enabled Manuel Fangio to win the 1955 Argentine Grand Prix. That same year, the car was driven by Stirling Moss at the Italian Grand Prix. He didn't win the race, but he did set the fastest lap. The W196 R #9 is therefore the most expensive F1 car ever sold at auction, but it's not the most expensive car in the world. The latter is a 1955 Mercedes-Benz SLR coupe that fetched €135 million in 2022.

(MH with Olivier Duquesne - Source: Mercedes-Benz, AFP, RTL Info - Picture: © Mercedes-Benz)