This $142 Million Mercedes-Benz Just Became the Most Expensive Car Ever Sold

It is the sort of point that only Mercedes-Benz could genuinely do.

On Thursday, at the Côte d’Azur’s new Maybourne Riviera hotel earlier mentioned Monte Carlo, Mercedes-Benz capped off its Funds Markets Day summit for investors with a couple of groundbreaking reveals. Method 1 racers Lewis Hamilton and George Russell assisted formally debut the all-electric powered Eyesight AMG thought car or truck in what, on any other celebration, would be a certainly grand finale. It’s really hard to believe that a car or truck representing such a pivotal change for AMG could be upstaged, but certainly it was.

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Much less than an hour following the Eyesight AMG was created general public, Ola Källenius, CEO of Mercedes-Benz, introduced what is claimed to be not just the world’s most pricey automobile sold at auction, but the priciest, period. A 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupé, incredibly on exhibit for attendees, fetched a history-obliterating $142.8 million at an invite-only party presided by RM Sotheby’s at the Mercedes museum in Stuttgart, Germany, on May 5.

Mercedes-Benz AG.

The automobile is a person of only two prototype racers produced by engineer Rudolf Uhlenhaut and his team for the 1955 Carrera Panamericana. That year’s level of competition, although, was called off, and Mercedes deserted motorsport totally, all owing to the infamous Le Mans tragedy—that June—where Pierre Levegh and his SLR catapulted into the crowd, killing the driver alongside with 83 spectators. Uhlenhaut’s challenge was subsequently shuttered and this individual instance, suit with a 297 hp inline-8 engine mated to a five-pace transmission, arrived into his possession. The truth that its top rated velocity was touted to be close to 186 mph only added to this 300 SLR’s mystique.

Mercedes-Benz AG

“As the saying goes: In no way say never,” Källenius stated when breaking the news. “We have been approached numerous times more than the several years by collectors, museums and other intrigued get-togethers wanting to invest in an Uhlenhaut we have constantly stated no. But it has turn into increasingly distinct to us that acquiring our heritage concealed absent in the holy halls is, in some approaches, a missed chance. These amazing cars and trucks are performs of art and ought to be much more greatly celebrated. We thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be interesting to see what it is genuinely truly worth . . . and what if we did something excellent with the cash, one thing for culture?’”

That considered method led to the development of the Mercedes-Benz Fund, which the sale of the Uhlenhaut Coupé helped get started. Renata Jungo Brüngger, a member of Mercedes-Benz’s Board of Management for Integrity and Authorized Affairs, refers to the proceeds as “seed money” for what she describes in the formal assertion as a “global scholarship program supporting young persons in their scientific tests, dedication and actions towards a much more sustainable foreseeable future.”

Mercedes-Benz AG.

It’s fitting that the area on
the French Riviera, not significantly from wherever Mercedes very first arrived to lifetime on a racetrack in Great again in 1901, was the phase for the world’s oldest automaker to spotlight these two disparate machines. Whilst separated by just about seven many years, each and every now fulfills the same goal of illuminating the storied marque’s street ahead.

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