This Mercedes-Benz W196R Stromlinienwagen has just become the most expensive F1 car to ever be sold. Leading auction house RM Sotheby’s auctioned the car for €46,5m. When all fees were added, Sotheby’s confirmed the final sale price was a whopping €51 155 000. You can do the mathe, but that’s just shy of a billion rands. The Mercedes-Benz W196R Stromlinienwagen follows on from the Mercedes-Benz 300SLR Uhlenhaut Coupe which became the most expensive car ever sold when it was auctioned off for €135 million a few years ago. You can read more about that car by clicking here.

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A Rare Legacy

Mercedes-Benz was a dominant force in Grand Prix racing in the middle of last century. Its W196R was an extremely difficult car to beat, especially as it was raced by some of the best pilots of the time. Only four examples of the W196R wear the Stromlinienwagen or streamliner body work. This is only the second W196R ever offered for private ownership and the only one with the distinctive shape.

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Mercedes used bodywork to cover their open-wheel racer, and placed it on a slightly long wheelbase to help performance on low-downforce circuits such as Monza. The car was raced to victory by five-time F1 world champion Juan Manuel Fangio at the 1955 Buenos Aires Grand Prix in Argentina. Brit Stirling Moss drove the same car to a win later that year at Monza.

An Expensive Gift

Of 10 W196Rs, Daimler-Benz Museum donated four cars to prestigious museums around the world, including  the car that went on sale. Car 00009/54 was gifted to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in in 1965, where it spent its entire life. For almost six decades, the W196R has been fastidiously stored and maintained by the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum. The car was sold on its behalf by RM Sothebys, with the auction taking place in Stuttgart.