Another day, another broken record. A legendary, 1955 Mercedes 300 SLR was recently sold at an auction in Germany, for the record price of €135 million, which equals $142.9 million at current exchange rates. This makes the 300 SLR the most expensive car in the world, easily dethroning the 1963 Ferrari 250 GTO, which was sold for $78.0 million back in 2018.

Only two examples of the Mercedes 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupé were ever created, and both have resided in the Mercedes-Benz factory since new, with at least one of them being showcased at the Mercedes-Benz Museum, in Stuttgart, at times. One of the two cars was recently sold for the first time to a private collector.

The car was auctioned off on May 5, 2022 at an invitation-only special event that was held at short notice at the Mercedes Museum, in Stuttgart. The 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupé is often referred to as the automotive “Mona Lisa”, even though it’s still far from the painting’s price of $900.0 million.

The cars were nicknamed “Blue” and “Red”, for their respective interior upholstery, and it was “Red” that was auctioned off, with 6,045 km (3,756 miles) on the odometer. The 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupé with red interior is a sister car to the Migle Millia record-breaking, open-top version, driven by Sir. Stirling Moss. The car covered 992 miles (1,596 km) in 10 hours 7 minutes and 48 seconds on public roads.

Unfortunately, the 300 SLR is also a car associated with the most disastrous accidents in motorsport history. On June 11, 1955, at the Circuit de la Sarthe, a Mercedes 300 SLR crash-lands into the public after a 150 mph (242 km/h) collision and explodes into pieces, causing 84 deaths and roughly 120 non-fatal injuries. The accident caused Mercedes to withdraw from competition racing for 33 years.

As for the Mercedes 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupé, it was named after its creator and chief engineer, Rudolf Uhlenhaut, and it was a development of the open-top variant. The car was powered by the same, 3.0-liter naturally-aspirated inline-eight with 302 horsepower and 229 pound-feet (310 Nm). A five-speed manual was responsible for sending power to the rear axle, and the end performance was a sprint from 0 to 60 mph (97 km/h) in 6.9 seconds with a top speed of 182 mph (293 km/h). Those are staggering figures, even by today’s standards, which shows just how advanced the Mercedes 300 SLR was back in 1955.

Mercedes 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupé specifications