The car in question is chassis number 3,765, which was the only GTO Tipo to be raced by Scuderia Ferrari. It was driven by Mike Parkes and Lorenzo Bandini at the 1962 24 Hours of Le Mans race, and also took a class win and second-place finish at the Nurburgring 1,000km in the same year. This 250 came onto the market after belonging to its previous owner for a whopping 38 years.
1. 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupe
- Auction: RM Sotheby’s, Stuttgart, 2022
- Price: $135,000,000 (estimated)
One of two 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupes, this car was sold at an exclusive, invite-only auction at the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart, Germany, for an incredible £135million.Â
Incredibly, the starting bid for this German racer was higher than the second-place Ferrari 250 GTO’s winning bid. Bought by a private seller, the 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupe was named after its creator and chief engineer, Rudolf Uhlenhaut, who drove the car to European events. It was owned by Mercedes from new, covering only 3,756 miles in seven decades.Â
While neither 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupe was raced, they did feature an upgraded 302bhp 3.0-litre straight-eight taken from the iconic two-time Grand Prix World Championship-winning W196 R, driven by Juan Manuel Fangio.
More of the world’s most expensive cars sold at auction
- Ferrari 410 Sport – 2014, $23,000,000
- Aston Martin DBR1 – 2017, $22,550,000
- Ferrari 410 Sport Spider – 2022, $22,005,000
- Ferrari 290 MM – 2018, $22,005,000
- Duesenberg SSJ – 2018, $22,000,000
- Jaguar D-Type – 2016, $21,780,000
- Aston Martin DP215 – 2018, $21,455,000
- McLaren F1 – 2021, $20,465,000
- McLaren F1 LM – 2019, $19,805,000
- Alfa Romeo 8C Lungo Spider – 2016, $19,800,000
Need a fast, accurate, free valuation on a car? Try our valuation tool…
