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Juan Manuel Fangio’s Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Is For Sale

JRHaelig

By JRHaelig
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alsancle 25,000+ Points

alsancle

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Posted

A 1.2 to 1.5 million dollar car without the celebrity owner.   Since I thought the Tom Cruise Buick was worthless I'm the wrong guy to guess.


But I would point out that it is not a Rudge wheel or disk brake car,  so as far as being an SL Roadster it would be down the pecking order. 

 

I think the blue is nice if that is the factory color.

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bryankazmer 10,000+ Points

bryankazmer

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3 hours ago, George K said:

If you don’t know about Juan Manuel Fangio known as The Maestro. You’re missing out on understanding the purist natural talent of man against wheeled machine.

winning his last championship at the Ring, running down the leading Ferraris with record laps - awesome stuff

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1912Staver 25,000+ Points

1912Staver

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Masterful driver. 90% of us would not be in the running even for a fix it upper 300 SL. Very interesting cars , but for very deep pockets only. This car being Fangio's personal car places it in a position well above nearly any other 300 SL. A very rarified market. I don't even watch this stuff anymore.

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Gunsmoke 10,000+ Points

Gunsmoke

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“Driving fast on the track does not scare me. What scares me is when I drive on the highway I get passed by some idiot who thinks he is Fangio.” – Juan Manuel Fangio. 

Obviously a guy with a good sense of humor as well, I've known about his racing success for decades, and from a time when many equally well known and accomplished drivers were racing, Moss just to name one. In any open bidding sale, final price is driven by 2 factors: the rarity/desirability/condition of the car including it's provenance, and secondly, how many "buyers/collectors" show up to fill their bucket list. You only need 2 parties seeing this as their "holy grail" to have the price go to $20M. We will know in a month or so. 

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Gunsmoke 10,000+ Points

Gunsmoke

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"Will it bring more than the Hirohata Mercury, a car more people can relate to?" someone remarked.

Seems sacrilegious to put the Mercillac and Fangio's car in same topic, especially on AACA. Like drawing comparisons between the Monkeymobile and a 65 Shelby Cobra. One is a bad joke and the other a phenomenal car. As I understand the HiMec, the Barris Brothers tried every customizing trick in the book being used in those days (chop, lower, french, stick on parts from other makes, tuck, pleat, and roll, pin stripe and other sorts of cosmetics, Caddy engine)to turn an already nice body style (50's era Merc's were already very popular) into a one-off car that is likely a pain to drive (cut coil springs in half to lower, flattened leaf springs etc). So the new buyer has a $2M Heinz that will likely sell for 1/2 of what he paid next time on the block, and that's only if he never drives it or mars it's current condition. 

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gossp 5,000+ Points

gossp

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I am going to give a wild guess for the sake of wild guesses, because I have no knowledge and limited interest in a car like this… but beer at Hershey was mentioned and that interest me:  4.75 million. 

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West Peterson 25,000+ Points

West Peterson

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1 hour ago, 1937hd45 said:

One of 1,858 built, if nobody told you who owned and drove it how would it differ from the rest? 

 

 

Bob

 

In this case, it's not the car being sold, it's the history. As Cadillac Fan said, we get it. You're not in. A lot of 300SLs have some pretty good history, but this one is probably on the top of the pyramid. Also, as others mentioned, it will indeed bring more than any gullwing, even an aluminum one.

 

As far as the "history" not adding any value, I seriously doubt anyone truly believes that.

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1912Staver 25,000+ Points

1912Staver

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In vintage race cars, the history can significantly influence the market value. A Lotus race car with even a bit of Jim Clark ; or any one of the other first rank drivers of the day, seat time will be quite a bit more valuable than a similar car that was a customer car and driven by a average driver with few or no significant placings. If it is a car that won a significant race or series, the sky can be the limit compared to ordinary history, customer cars.

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alsancle 25,000+ Points

alsancle

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I guess I'm in the minority where celebrity ownership of a common car doesn't elevate that car to stratospheric heights for me.

 

Bob has a point,  when your 4.5 million dollar 300SL is sitting in your garage,  you need a big sign to explain how it is different from a run of the mill early 300SL roadster.

 

RM knows what they are doing,  so I assume there will plenty of period pictures of Fangio sitting in it.  There doesn't seem to be any right now.

 

Juxtapose this car against the Caracciola 500K which was also a gift to the greatest racer of his time from Damilar Benz.    That car is a one off and instantly recognizable for what it is.  I would expect this car to bring stupid money.   It doesn't need a sign next to it.

 

Mercedes Benz 1935

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Cadillac Fan 2,500+ Points

Cadillac Fan

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Posted (edited)

I don’t get paying $100 million plus for a Damien Hirst skull. 
 

I don’t get paying $2 million for a lead sled by some backyard customizers.  
 

I don’t get paying $2 million for a dead actor’s 930 turbo.   
 

But I know there are those that think these things are worth more than the sum of their parts.  

Is there a difference between the v16 Cadillac with the reproduction roadster body and a factory v16 roadster?  To most everyone they are the same car.  But the history of the factory bodied car adds value. 

 

That is the case here.  The history of ownership adds value. F1 has a world wide audience and is growing.  Plus the world is awash with money.  
 

I don’t think it will be stratospheric, but 3-5 times what a similar one would go for.  And less than an alloy gullwing. 
 

It will certainly be less that the $30 million paid, 9 years ago, for the Mercedes w196, a car he won the championship in (1954). 

 

My guess is that it ends up in Canada next to a 275 NART.

 

 

 

 

Edited by Cadillac Fan (see edit history)
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SC38dls 25,000+ Points

SC38dls

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Hagerty just sent this out in their DIALY DRIVER - here is part of their story

dave s

 

RM Sotheby’s is only providing an estimate upon request, so we polled our valuation experts here in the U.S. to give us a range. Their conclusion? This car has a solid shot at the 300 SL record. The current high water-mark is $3,685,369, set in 2018 by a 1963 Roadster sold via Artcurial. We’d put this 1958 example between $3M and $4M, and Fangio’s ownership will weigh heavily. This 1951 Alfa Romeo 1900 Sprint, the last ex-Fangio road car we saw appear at auction, sold for $616,000 in 2018, or or 2.1 times the model’s #1 (Concours) condition value at the time ($294,000). Applying that same arithmetic to Fangio’s 300 SL in 2021, we get $3.57M, just shy of the record. However, the market has changed since 2018, and the 300 SL has only become more collectible since. We’d estimate that Fangio’s SL sells between $3M and $4M.

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