- Mercedes-Benz streamliner raced by Juan Manuel Fangio and Stirling Moss set to cross auction block
- The car will be the first W 196 R Stromlinienwagen ever made available for private ownership
- It’s expected the race car will net a sale price in excess of €50,000,000, or CDN$73.65 million
- The sale, by Ontario, Canada-headquartered RM Sotheby’s, takes place in Germany on February 1, 2025
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A 1954 Mercedes-Benz Formula One race car piloted in period by two of the greatest drivers known to the sport, Juan Manuel Fangio and Sir Stirling Moss, will cross the auction block at a special standalone event in Germany on February 1, 2025. It’s estimated the car may fetch in excess of €50,000,000, or CDN$73.65 million.
What you’re looking at is one of just 14 Mercedes-Benz W 196 R race cars built, specifically chassis 00009/54. It wears the marque’s rather aerodynamic Elektron-alloy Stromlinienwagen bodywork, which together with the car’s 3.0-litre M196 straight-eight engine helped it achieve speeds of up to 186 mph (299 km/h).
The specs aren’t what gives this piece of history its value, though: it’s its racing pedigree. This Benz was first campaigned in an open-wheel configuration, without that sleek, streamlined body, by Juan Manuel Fangio at the Formula Libre Buenos Aires Grand Prix in January 1955, near the start of that year’s Formula One season; you won’t be surprised to hear he took the win, there.
It went on to become one of four W 196 R racers fitted with that then-experimental Stromlinienwagen coachwork, and in that configuration was raced by a young Stirling Moss at the 1955 Italian Grand Prix at Monza, where it was forced to retire mid-race—after setting a record fastest lap, mind you.
At the end of the ’55 F1 season, just 10 examples of those 14 W 196 R race cars remained, and Mercedes itself initially held on to all of them. Eventually, it decided to donate four of them to various museums; chassis 00009/54 here thus went to the then-fledgling Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS) Museum in 1965.
The museum kept the car in good nick, refinishing it to a high standard twice, in 1980 and then in 2015. While living most of its life in the IMS Museum vault, chassis 00009/54 got around some, too, for example flying to the Canadian International Auto Show in Toronto in 2003, among more prestigious concours and events.
Its sale out of the museum collection is being coordinated by Chatham, Ontario, Canada-based RM Sotheby’s; the firm claims “chassis number 00009/54 represents only the second W 196 R ever offered for private ownership,” and the first streamliner-bodied example. It predicts its sale price will exceed €50,000,000, or CDN$73.65 million. The Benz’s standalone auction will take place not in Indianapolis, but in the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart, Germany, on February 1, 2025.
RM Sotheby’s was also behind the (similarly standalone) sale of the 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupé that in May 2022 became the world’s most expensive car ever, when it hammered for €135 million (US$142 million, about CDN$182 million).
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