A 1954 Mercedes-Benz W196 pushed by the legendary Juan Manuel Fangio will quickly be accessible to automobile collectors with deep pockets.
The Mercedes race automobile is certainly one of a number of from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum assortment that might be bought by RM Sotheby’s all through 2024 and 2025. Proceeds from the gross sales will assist fund the museum, in keeping with a press launch. With an estimated sale value of $50 million to $70 million, the W196 will definitely contribute to that purpose.
Fangio was one of many first stars of the Method 1 championship, competing from its first season in 1950. He received 5 championships, a document that stood for 46 years till Michael Schumacher broke it. Even right now, solely Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton have received extra championships than Fangio, at seven apiece.
1954 Mercedes-Benz W196 (picture through RM Sotheby’s)
Whereas he received championships with a minimum of 4 constructors, a lot of Fangio’s success got here behind the wheel of the W196, which was launched for the 1954 racing season and carried the Argentinian to the championship that yr. It was a complicated automobile for the time, boasting a 2.5-liter inline-8 laid over on its aspect to cut back frontal space. The engine had desmodromic valves and mechanical direct injection, permitting it to develop 257 hp.
The W196 up on the market was constructed as an open-wheel automobile, like most grand prix racers. Fangio raced it on this configuration at a non-points race in Buenos Aires in 1954. The automobile was then fitted with enclosed “streamliner” bodywork for the 1955 Italian Grand Prix at Monza, the place it was pushed by one other racing legend—Stirling Moss. Mercedes then used it as a observe and check automobile earlier than donating it to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum in 1965.
By that point, Mercedes had been out of top-level motorsport for a decade. The automaker withdrew from competitors following the 1955 24 Hours of Le Mans catastrophe, by which Pierre Levegh’s Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR vaulted right into a grandstand, killing Levegh and scores of spectators. The W196 can be the final factory-run Mercedes F1 automobile till the W01 of 2010, though Mercedes had been supplying engines to McLaren and different groups earlier than that.
1954 Mercedes-Benz W196 (picture through RM Sotheby’s)
The estimated sale value of this automobile dwarfs that of the Fangio-driven W196 that bought for $29.7 million at public sale in 2013. That automobile, which featured open-wheel bodywork, was pushed by Fangio to his first F1 win with Mercedes on the 1954 German Grand Prix. Fangio additionally received the 1954 Swiss Grand Prix in that automobile.
Whereas it is a crucial piece of racing historical past, the Fangio/Moss W196 does not have a direct connection to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and is past the museum’s focus. All museums have restricted assets to look after artifacts, and deaccessioning less-relevant items is a typical course of. Different notable vehicles up on the market embody the Ferrari 250 LM that received the 1965 24 Hours of Le Mans and a 1966 Ford GT Mk II run by Holman-Moody and pushed by Mark Donohue at Le Mans and the 12 Hours of Sebring.
