1955 Mercedes sold for 135 million euros, world record for a car at auction
Steph Deschamps / May 20, 2022
A 1955 Mercedes, of which there are only two, was sold in early May for 135 million euros, an all-time world record for a car sold at auction, RM Sotheby's announced Thursday.
The 1955 Mercedes Coupe 300 SLR Uhlenhaut was sold May 5 at a confidential auction held at the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart, Germany, in cooperation between Sotheby's luxury car subsidiary and the German carmaker.
Priced at €135 million, this Mercedes was almost triple the previous record held since 2018 by a 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO sold in 2018 by RM Sotheby's for over $48 million (€45 million).
In addition, the Mercedes 300 SLR now ranks in the top 10 most expensive items ever sold at auction, RM Sotheby's boasted in a statement issued Thursday in London and echoed in New York by parent company Sotheby's, which is holding its spring art auction this week.
In fact, according to a ranking established by AFP of works of art sold at auction in recent years mainly in New York, the absolute record is held by Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi, sold in November 2017 for $450.3 million by Christie's in New York.
Next is Shot Sage Blue Marilyn by Andy Warhol, which sold for $195 million at Christie's on May 9, becoming the most expensive 20th century work of art ever sold at public auction.
According to this ranking of works of art sold at auctions of more than 100 million dollars, the Mercedes sold on May 5 by RM Sotheby's and qualified as the most beautiful car in the world thus ranks 6th or 7th.
The car, which was owned, as was the second example, by Mercedes-Benz, was sold to a private collector and the proceeds will be used to establish a Mercedes-Benz International Fund for youth research scholarships and training in environmental science and decarbonization, according to RM Sotheby’s.