Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupe
The most expensive car ever sold. Only two 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupes were built. In 2022 one sold for 135 million euros, the highest price ever paid for a car at auction.
300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupe on display: Guywelch2000, CC BY 4.0
A racing car with a roof
The 300 SLR was Mercedes-Benz's sports racing car for the 1955 season, built around the straight-eight engine of the W196 Formula One car, enlarged to 3.0 litres. SLR stands for Sport Leicht Rennen, roughly sport light racing. It won the 1955 Mille Miglia with Stirling Moss, setting a record average speed.
Two of the nine chassis were built as closed coupes with gullwing doors, intended for long road races. When Mercedes ended its racing programme after the 1955 season, they never raced.
The gullwing doors were not just for style. Like the 300 SL road car, the SLR used a light tubular spaceframe with high, deep sides for strength, and doors hinged in the roof were the practical way to let people climb over those sides. The long racing exhausts run along the flanks, so the car is loud even by sports car standards.
Uhlenhaut's company car
Rudolf Uhlenhaut, the engineer who led the 300 SLR project, used one of the coupes as his own transport. With a top speed approaching 290 km/h, it was by far the fastest road car of its day, and stories of him arriving at meetings in record time became part of company lore.
The cabin is famously simple: a large wooden wheel, a few gauges and seats trimmed in blue tartan cloth. The long bonnet and side exhausts show its racing roots.
The 2022 sale
For decades Mercedes-Benz kept both coupes. Then, on 5 May 2022, RM Sotheby's held a private, invitation-only auction at the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart. One coupe sold to a private collector for 135 million euros, about 143 million US dollars.
That price more than doubled the previous auction record for a car. Mercedes-Benz said the money would fund a global scholarship programme, the Mercedes-Benz Fund, supporting young people in environmental science and decarbonisation research.
Where to see one
The second coupe stays with Mercedes-Benz and is shown at the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart. Under the sale terms, the sold car was also to remain accessible for public display on certain occasions.
The sale shows how a car with a clear history, near-unique status and factory ownership since new can reach a price far beyond any previous car. Even so, the price reflects a single private sale, not a general market level.
