Post date: Jul 12, 2013 8:18:33 PM
A 1954 race car becomes the most expensive Mercedes-Benz ever sold at auction as an anonymous bidder bid 19.6 million pounds ($29.6 million USD) at a sale in Britain.
GOODWOOD, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM (JULY 12, 2013) (REUTERS) - History was made on Friday (July 12) as a 1954 Mercedes-Benz W196, in which five-time Formula 1 World Champion driver Juan Manuel Fangio won two Grand Prix, also became the most expensive Mercedes-Benz ever sold, auction houseBonhams said.
"We sold the 1954 Mercedes-Benz W196 Grand Prix car, the car that was driven by Fangio, for a new world auction record price. And it sold for a premium inclusive price 19,601,500 pounds (GBP) which was about 29,500,000 dollars (USD)",Bonhams Motoring Director James Knight told Reuters from the sale at theGoodwood Festival of Speed in southern England.Knight refused to give any clues as the winning bidder. "There is absolutely no possibility of being able to disclose the identity of the buyer or indeed which country or continent he is in, so it is going to remain private."
The previous auction record was held by a 1957 Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa, which sold for $16.39 million USD in 2011.
The 2.5-litre straight-8 Mercedes-Benz driven by Fangio already had a storied history. The driver's 1954 victories in the German and Swiss Grand Prix were the first successive wins by the Mercedes-Benz Formula 1 team in the German racing crew's post-World War Two comeback.
The car competed in five world championship-qualifying Grand Prix races. After Fangio's 1954 Swiss Grand Prix win, the W196R was retired to the Daimler-Benz Museum.
Bonhams' motor sport specialist, Doug Nye explained the significance of the car in terms of it's post war importance. "Immediately after the second World War, Mercedes was reduced to rubble and they were reduced to keeping their people employed by making bicycles. Yet by 1952 they were building sports cars that won Le Mans and by 1954 they were back into Grand Prix racing with this car here. This car exemplifies or symbolizes Germany's post war re-emergence as a sporting and engineering power and it also exemplifies a period where Germany was out making friends instead of enemies."
Another land mark at the auction was a 1955 Maserati 300s sports racing spiderwhich went for a premium inclusive price £4, 033, 500. (GBP) - the most expensiveMaserati ever sold.