A 70-year-old Mercedes raced by the likes of Juan Manuel Fangio and Stirling Moss has smashed the record for the most expensive Formula 1 car ever sold.
A W196R from the 1955 season, in closed-wheel ‘Streamliner’ configuration, sold for €51.155 million (£42.7m) at auction. It was auctioned by RM Sotheby’s at the Mercedes museum in Stuttgart, Germany.Its sale price is more than double that of the previous record-holder, another W196, which raced in 1954. That car sold for £19.6m in 2013.
The new record-holder was last raced by Moss at the Italian Grand Prix in 1955. Mercedes built different configurations of its W196 for different circuits, favouring the ‘streamlined’ version for the fastest tracks.
However the involvement of a Mercedes in a crash at the 1955 Le Mans 24 Hours, which killed scores or spectators, led the manufacturer to withdraw from motorsport at the end of that year. It did not return to grand prix racing until 2010. Mercedes donated the car to the IMS in 1965.
Despite more than doubling the record price for an F1 car, it fell short of the highest value ever paid for an automobile. That record is held by another Mercedes, a roadgoing 300 SLR ‘Uhlenhaut’ Coupe, which a buyer paid $142m for in 2022.
The market for classic F1 cars has been very strong in recent years. A 2013 Mercedes of the type used by Lewis Hamilton to score his first grand prix victory sold for $18.8m (£15.1m) in 2023.
A wide array of classic F1 cars are due to go on sale later this year as the series’ former CEO Bernie Ecclestone is due to sell his collection which includes rare Ferraris and other famous machines. His entire collection is expected to sell for a nine-figure sum.
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El Pollo Loco
1st February 2025, 17:07
Pretty car, but sickening we’ve got all these billionaires craning up super cars and vintage cars into their penthouses. If you’ve got $50m to spend on a car, you need to be taxed hard.
MichaelN
1st February 2025, 19:19
According to the Office for National Statistics, median gross annual earnings for full-time employees in the UK who had been in their job for at least a year were, as of mid 2024, £37,430.
This car thus represents “only” 1140 years of work. So if you had started working when the Vikings landed in Kent in 885, you’d now have enough to buy this car. Assuming you were good at avoiding taxes, that is. Or any other costs. For over a millennium.
As cool as that car might be, this is a clear indication of systemic failure.
Tifoso1989 (@tifoso1989)
2nd February 2025, 18:19
+1 COTD !
Couldn’t have said it better.
David
1st February 2025, 19:44
If you tax them hard, they have the means to just move to a country where they are not taxed hard, which Rachel Reeves is already finding (and she had barely introduced bigger taxes yet, there was just the threat of them).
High earners contribute a significant proportion of tax income – the top 1% of earners in the UK pay nearly 30% of the total income tax received, the top 50% of earners paid around 90%.
Penalise the wealthy at your peril.
El Pollo Loco
1st February 2025, 20:03
This is the oldest and weakest argument in the elite and corporate PR book. There are many ways to stop individuals and corporations from just moving to avoid taxes. If there wasn’t, the top personal income rate wouldn’t have been over 90% at one point in the US. If individuals want to do business in the United States and a few of the other largest markets, they can’t run away as hard as they try if there’s any actual will to reform and enforce. The alternative is an inevitable catastrophic implosion of society at some point. The two wealthiest Americans have more wealth than the bottom 50% of Americans combined (roughly 200m people). Yeah, that’s sustainable…
The most ironic thing is that we give large corporations tax breaks and other incentives, but large corporations are not responsible for even the smallest fraction of jobs growth. New/small businesses are responsible for literally more than 90% of new jobs and the majority of economic growth. Yet we’ve heard endlessly from corporations how they’ll just have to move if they don’t get help. Meanwhile, they become a massive drain on the economy as they don’t pay their employees a living wage and social subsidies are required to keep them afloat.
M2X
3rd February 2025, 10:53
Small businesses also exploit their employees far more than big businesses. Pay lower wages, give worse benefits, lower bonuses, are exempt of employee protection, often more dangerous working environments due to not investing in worker safety and adequate maintenance.
Other fun fact distribution of wealth doesn’t work either. People that can’t handle money, won’t start being able to handle it when they get more of it. Up to 70% of athletes go broke within 5 years of retirement.
If you want the poor/working classes to become financially strong that way is paved in education.
El Pollo Loco
6th February 2025, 21:39
lol, you seem to think I’m endorsing taking money from the ultra rich and just signing checks over to random people. I’m not. I am talking about things like ensuring citizens actually good education, have access to affordable healthcare, maybe opening a facility or two for the legions of mentally ill living on the street, providing effective incentives for onshoring manufacturing, etc. Also, comparing your average adult with a professional athlete is a very bad analogy.
Aquila_GD
1st February 2025, 20:05
You all have very strong arguments.
I agree with MichaelN that this does show a system failure but I equally concur with David that the solution is not to overtax the wealthy.
Tony Mansell (@tonymansell)
2nd February 2025, 14:18
Yep peddling the b/millionaires PR line. Most of them are non doms and if you dont want to pay tax. Go live somewhere else. We really wont miss any of them. I dont know why you think a postman should pay tax but not someone who has more money than they can spend.
Mr A
2nd February 2025, 16:40
That’s cool we don’t want them here anyway.
El Pollo Loco
2nd February 2025, 18:07
“Because of tax rates, I’ve decided not to make more $!”
-Friends of Billionaires’ brilliant argument
Jere (@jerejj)
1st February 2025, 17:12
Even if I were ridiculously loaded, I wouldn’t spend such an astronomical sum for an F1 car that would end up permanently standing in a garage anyway.
Matthijs (@matthijs)
2nd February 2025, 15:20
@jerejj It is bought as an investment. Keep this car in your garage for a few years and it will be worth even more. You need money to earn money.
BenjaminS (@benihana)
2nd February 2025, 1:41
For a car that is now completely passed over in terms of technology and is worth on the market at over 50 million Euros, the buyer is just bloody nuts. I would personally pay 1 million Euro to have the pleasure to drive, If possible at all at this point, but over 50, nuts.
Tony Mansell (@tonymansell)
3rd February 2025, 11:57
Youd pay 1 million euros to drive but not 50 to own. That is also nuts. Personally if i had 50m to spend on a car id buy one. Zero CGT and the pleasure of driving owning and looking at it
Rahim.RG
2nd February 2025, 6:29
As they say, “Old is Gold” :)
Adrian Hancox (@ahxshades)
2nd February 2025, 9:31
What a simply beautiful car.
Sergey Martyn
2nd February 2025, 13:42
Hope that the new owner is Chinese billionaire who will manufacture A LOT of exact copies for $10,000 each.
Lucky
2nd February 2025, 15:53
Very nice looking F1 car..
Nothing wrong with purchasing this car if you have the means to do so. But stating that the rich should be taxed more is utter nonsense. Sounds like communism to me..
El Pollo Loco
2nd February 2025, 18:02
Haha, yeah, there’s zero gap between taxing fund managers who make $20b in a single year adding nothing to the output of the economy and communism. Insert brain [here].
El Pollo Loco
2nd February 2025, 18:04
hedge fund*
Bob C
2nd February 2025, 16:03
In my attempted Indiana Jones voice (*) “That thing belongs in a museum !/em>”
(*) glad no one here can actually hear the squeaky warbling sound that does come out when I try…