WHEELS & WATER
NOD TO NOSTALGIA Old or New? It’s your choice as Chris Nixon explains.
THE $205MILLION MERC What would you buy with $205 million? A row of Surfers Paradise tower blocks? A mega-mega yacht? A couple of Picassos? Or an old Mercedes? Mercedes-Benz, the world’s oldest car maker, stunned the car collector movement recently when it sold a 67-year-old 300SLR sports coupe for that price in an ultra-exclusive Sotheby’s auction in Stuttgart. That’s said to be a record price for a car, by a margin of around $136 million. The sale made headlines in a classic car world already used to prices in the tens of millions for old Ferraris, Jaguars or Bugattis. Experts put it in the all-time Top 10 of auction records and noted a motor car now stood shoulder-toshoulder in esteem alongside the greatest artworks ever to change hands for money. $205 million! What is this car? The rakish 300SLR was derived from Mercedes’ all-conquering W196 Formula 1 racer, but its own racing future was stymied when the company withdrew from all motorsport at the end of 1955. Featuring those unique ‘gullwing’ doors and a straight-eight engine with bellowing trumpet side exhausts, only two of this type were made. Way back in 1955, they were capable of reaching 180 miles an hour, tested occasionally on the autobahns by racing drivers Stirling Moss and Juan Fangio and appropriated as a company car by legendary factory engineer Rudolf Uhlenhaut. Rated among the rarest, most beautiful and most desirable cars of all time, the so-called Uhlenhaut Coupes were parked in Stuttgart, expected to remain in Mercedes hands forever. But imagine the rush if the Louvre revealed there were two Monas Lisas. Mercedes-Benz decided to part with one of the pair – the one with red upholstery, not the blue – and did so with utmost discretion. Just a handful of bidders was invited to the secret auction by RM Sotheby’s at Mercedes’ Stuttgart headquarters. Virtually nothing has been revealed about this historic sale, except the opening bid was $76 million. To be a fly on the wall of history might have revealed if the bidding was fast or slow or intense, dignified or rowdy and indeed the identity of the buyer, so far unknown. But the new owner has confirmed the 300SLR will be made available for display, giving the public a chance to see one of the most desirable and exotic pieces of automotive art ever created, its lustre only polished by the story of its extraordinary sale.
70 covemagazine.com.au
– Issue 91
