Collector cars are expected to be pricey affairs, but very few have a price tag with seven figures before the decimal. Well, this 1954 Mercedes-Benz W196 ‘Monza’ Streamliner doesn’t have a mere seven figures before the decimal, it has eight. And we’re not talking about a paltry ten or twelve million dollars. This historic Mercedes could very well go for $50-$70 million bucks.
That is a lot of cheese. How on earth could any car be worth this much? What happened to it in the course of history? Who is selling it?
In my quest for answers, I found out a lot about racing, legendary drivers, and why it’s priced so high. Heck, even as a 1:8 scale model, the W196 commands a heady $21,995 – more on that later.
On sale through RM Sotheby’s from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum (IMSM), this Mercedes has lived an incredible life. It began as an open-wheeled race car driven by none other than Juan Manuel Fangio in 1954. He piloted the car in a non-points race in Argentina before handing it off to the equally legendary Sterling Moss to race at Monza in 1955. Moss recorded the fastest lap at Monza with the machine, and the W196 was a dominant force in the two seasons Mercedes campaigned the car.
The W196 displaced just 2.5 liters from its V12 but made over 250 horsepower and won the 1954 and 1955 F1 championships with little serious competition. However, 1955 would go down as a year of tragedy for racing and for Mercedes. The 1955 Le Mans disaster saw Pierre Levegh’s 300SL shatter in a wreck that claimed the lives of over 80 spectators as a result of fire and flying debris. Mercedes pulled out of the series after the incident, and this W196 is a part of that moment in time.
It’s so important, in fact, that several pieces of art and motorsports memorabilia have spawned from it. For example, a “children’s car” version of Hans Herrmann’s number-22 W196 went on sale in Monaco traded hands for €30,000.
If you can’t afford a $30,000 go-kart, you might think a W196 rendered as a 1:8 scale display model could fit your budget. And while it is indeed less expensive, you’re still looking at $21,995 – yikes. At 19 inches long, it’s an impressively large model but still small enough to display easily, which is nice because when you’ve got a model car that costs more than an entire base Chevrolet Trax , you’ll certainly want to show it off.
RM Sotheby’s has yet to release a full statement on exactly when the W196 Streamliner is going to auction or additional details, but has announced it’s selling other important pieces of auto-racing history from the IMSM including a 1929 Bugatti Type 35C, a 1909 Mercedes-Brookland Semmering Hill Climb car, and a 1964 Ferrari 250 LM.
“This is a really unique opportunity for any museum, but especially for us, to create a situation that is going to almost guarantee the future of the [Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum],” said Joe Hale, president of the IMS Museum, to the Indianapolis Business Journal. The story goes on to say that proceeds from the sales will go toward the Museum’s endowment and future costs.
We’ve reached out to RM Sotheby’s for more information and will update this story if we learn more. Finally, due to how vague the auction house is about the example going up for sale, I can’t say for sure that the car in the embedded video below is exactly the same as the one on sale, but it’s a good chance to see a W196 pushed hard by Lewis Hamilton.
$20K for a model car? Get a life
What a ripoff
My top 3 Mercedes are the W196R streamliner, the Uhlenhaut Coupe, and Blue Wonder–in that order. I just need to win several lotteries to afford them all.
I have a semi-question/discussion topic. At what point does making a smaller V12 like this make more sense than a slightly larger straight 6 (like something in the Jaguar XK)?
They make about the same horsepower, but in a race car I feel like less cylinders would mean less to go wrong with half the moving parts? Does it come down to packaging mostly? And I know they are in totally different eras, but just using the Jag as an example as that’s the first one that came to mind.
This is something that I have always kind of had in the back of my mind when I read about the older race cars that have tiny V12’s. I mean my Mazda3 has a 2.5 engine in it, the thought of that being a V12 just blows my mind.
Liter-for-liter, a many-cylindered engine can rev higher, hence more horsepower. In 1966 Honda made a 125cc racebike with five cylinders. And yes, they won until the British manufacturers forced a rule change.
That makes sense. Obviously a rebuild happens after each race. I guess my thinking, especially for back when things weren’t quite as reliable, is having less moving parts would be the “safer” bet. Like when endurance races we’re more of a survival versus nowadays where it a 24 hour sprint.
As an IMS apologist who attends the race every year and supports the museum, I’m a little bummed they’re selling these cars to fund the future… the museum has been closed for over a year for renovations; selling these historic vehicles into collections, never to be seen again, is disheartening.
Unless they stay at the museum on ‘permanent loan’ for racing fans to experience.
The barest bit of searching would have confirmed it was an online 8 or, maybe just know something about Mercedes race cars. Desmodromic valve gear, too
I much prefer the offline 12s
Well, the “i” and the “o” are next to each other in the (QWERTY) keyboard so…
The barest bit of searching would have revealed that full aniline 16s are the mark of a true connoisseur.
I registered to bid, but they ran a credit check and declined me 🙁
The 250 LM should pull amazing numbers too. The last of the factory Ferraris to win LeMans until last year. And spectacular too.
Not gonna lie, I laughed hard when I saw the Sotheby’s Insta post reference “Juan Manual Fangio”. How did that one slip through?
Your faith in the 50s race car is strong…
I wonder why these race cars from about 1955-1965 seem to be so much more valuable than those from before or after.
Just from perusing this list, 24 of the 30 seem to be either 50s-60s race cars or contemporary Ferrari road cars based on said race cars.
https://www.hagerty.com/media/market-trends/the-top-30-most-expensive-cars-ever-sold-at-auction/
I’d argue it’s the most romantic and heroic age of sports cars of this caliber, before everything became corporate assaults.
Pre-war is far more romatic and heoric, although those are more like rolling sculptures.
For cars the 50’s and early 60’s are from that era.
I’d argue it’s the generational hump. 60’s muscle cars used to be the affordable hotness, and pre-war hot rods before that, but now Radwood etc. is shifting the focus newer for us regularly-funded folk. The Big Money crowd seems to be aging as well…
Possibly because earlier vehicles are more like rolling sculptures. So compared to art they are fairly cheap.
Still popping up in the list, though.
My guess is because anyone who can afford them saw them when they were kids.
This is fantastic news for the museum. I’ve been once and it is an amazing collection. I imagine that money will go a long way to preserving other vehicles.
Also, as soon as I saw $22k for a model, I knew it was Amalgam. But, you can also purchase it in four interest free $5,500 payments!