On the 5th of May, 2022, Mercedes-Benz Museum hosted a secret ‘invitation-only’ auction. The select group of bidders were hand-picked and had to comply with certain “strict requirements.” The object of this auction? The “Mona Lisa of cars” – a 1955 300 SLR Coupé. The winning bid for the car “that would never be sold” was a record-breaker at €135m ($142 million), made by British expert and dealer Simon Kidston on behalf of an unnamed collector.
Kidston, who had lobbied the board of the German automaker for some 18 months to consider selling the car, said after the event: “If you had asked classic car experts and top collectors over the past half a century to name the most desirable car in the world, there’s a good chance that they would have come up with the same model: the Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR. It’s a combination of exotic engineering, all-conquering racing history, the power of the three-pointed star on its nose, and the fact that one had never been sold. Many collectors had tried, all had failed.
“That was what the entire motoring world thought, but times change, and if you don’t ask, you’ll never know. A longstanding relationship with the Mercedes-Benz Museum helped, but even after 18 months of patient lobbying, we didn’t know if or how they would consider letting the 300 SLR out of captivity until just before it happened. For everyone involved, and especially the new owner whom we represented, this was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to buy the Mona Lisa of cars.”
It had always been assumed that Mercedes would never part with one of the crown jewels of its company collection. It is considered “the Mona Lisa of cars” because it possesses the most elusive combination of rarity, racing pedigree, beauty and unavailability. No surprise then that the final figure of €135 million (US$142 million on the day) smashed the previous record for the sale of a car – believed to be $78 million for a 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO in a 2018 private sale.
Rudolf ‘Rudi’ Uhlenhaut, the then chief of Daimler-Benz motorsport, commissioned two examples of the 1955 300 SLR Coupés to be built for endurance racing. The two Coupés were based on the 300 SLR (W196 S), the open-top two-seat racer built by Mercedes for the 1955 season, and driven by Grand Prix greats such as Stirling Moss, Juan Manuel Fangio and Peter Collins.
Heavily based on the company’s all-conquering W196 Grand Prix single-seater, the W196 S was powered by a 302bhp, 3.0-litre straight-eight of great complexity. Its domination of the 1955 World Sportscar Championship included Stirling Moss’s Mille Miglia-record-breaking run. Covering 992 miles in 10 hours, 7 minutes and 48 seconds on public roads, Moss’s 1955 Mille Miglia has been described as one of the greatest-ever feats of motor racing.
The design of the 300 SLR Coupé shares styling cues with the famous 300 SL ‘Gullwing’ road car. However, under the skin is a pure competition car with almost no concession to practicality, as none was ever intended to be sold to private clients. The two 300 SLR Coupés were never raced either, although they were used for practice runs and as Uhlenhaut’s high-speed transport to European events.
A road test jointly conducted by British magazine Autocar and Swiss periodical Automobil Revue in 1956 produced the following figures: 0-60mph 6.9sec; 0-120mph in 20.3sec; maximum speed 176.47mph. It is important to mention that for these road tests, the car was fitted with power-sapping silencers.
Writing for Autocar in January 1957, Gordon Wilkins describes the other-worldly capabilities of the SLR Coupé: “Remember that this car is not for sale, and in this form never will be: it is a racing car adapted for road use with certain experimental objectives in view… It has to be mastered like a mettlesome horse. To have driven it has eclipsed all previous experiences in 20 years of test driving on the world’s finest cars, and I do not expect to find its match for a long time to come.”
Both 300 SLR Coupés had remained at the Mercedes-Benz factory since they were new. One was nicknamed ‘Blue’ for its blue upholstery, and is on display at the Mercedes-Benz Museum. The second one, nicknamed ‘Red,’ was kept mostly in storage, with 6,045km covered in its entire lifetime. ‘Red’ has now become the most valuable car in the world. According to Mercedes-Benz, the amount from the sale will be used to “set up a charitable fund for young people.”
This record-breaking sale may not have ever taken place had it been for the efforts of Simon Kidston. Born in 1967, Simon was destined to be a racecar man. His father was Commander Home Kidston, a British naval officer who owned and raced cars in his spare time. Simon also happens to be the nephew of 1920s ‘Bentley Boy’ Commander Glen Kidston, who raced against Mercedes ace Rudolf Caracciola at Le Mans.
Simon Kidston began his career at the auction department of a London classic car dealership. Eight years later, he co-founded Brooks (now Bonhams) Europe with the late Robert Brooks. Over the next decade, he developed high-profile auctions around the globe, including the single-marque Mercedes-Benz sale at the factory’s Stuttgart Museum.
Simon stepped down as President of Bonhams Europe in 2006 to found Kidston, the consultancy that has since become synonymous with Private Treaty sales of rare and exceptional motor cars. In addition to its offices in Geneva and Dubai, it has recently expanded into Italy, where it is developing a car restoration business based on artisanal skills.
In addition to the brokerage of ‘Best of the Best’ classic cars, Simon Kidston serves as Master of Ceremonies at the celebrated Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este and is a longstanding judge at Pebble Beach. He served as head judge of the Cartier ‘Travel with Style’ concours in India, official commentator of the Mille Miglia and is a curator of the Homo Faber Foundation in Venice. His company publishes books, including the definitive works on the Lamborghini Miura, and produces the K500.com market index. In 2010 he was invited by Mercedes-Benz to drive his favourite car, the 300 SLR ‘Uhlenhaut Coupé,’ one of few people outside the factory ever to do so.
He has spent many years tracking down and buying back family cars, including the Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Gullwing his father collected new from the factory in 1955. Fittingly, Simon drove this car to the 300 SLR auction in Stuttgart on 5 May 2022.
