There is a new world record price for an F1 car, as a title-winning Mercedes W196R has fetched a huge €51.155m [£42.76m] at auction.

The 1954 Mercedes-Benz W196R Stromlinienwagen – the first of its kind ever to be sold at auction – has more than doubled the price of the previous highest selling price of a Formula 1 car, also a W196R, from back in 2013.

F1 car auction record smashed with €51m sale of Mercedes W196R

An auction was held for the 00009/54 chassis, driven by both Juan Manuel Fangio and Stirling Moss during their Formula 1 stint, at Mercedes-Benz headquarters in Stuttgart on Saturday.

It was the first Stromlinienwagen, or ‘Streamliner’ chassis ever to be made available for private sale, with that car having been held on display at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum since 1965, after being donated by Mercedes themselves.

It is only the second time any W196R has been sold, but the ‘Streamliner’ specification saw Mercedes use bodywork to cover their open-wheel, and place the chassis on a long wheelbase to help performance on low-downforce circuits.

Auctioneers RM Sotheby’s facilitated the sale, and while the car went under the hammer at €46.5million, when the buyer’s premium was added, Sotheby’s have since confirmed the final sale price of €51,155,000 via their website.

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This not only makes the W196R Streamliner the most valuable Formula 1 car of all time, but the second-most valuable car sale ever – with only a 1955 Mercedes 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupe [$142m] eclipsing it.

Fangio drove the now-sold chassis to a home win at the 1955 Buenos Aires Grand Prix in Argentina, and the same chassis would then be taken on by Moss later that year at Monza, on the famous 10-kilometre banked layout no longer in use in Formula 1.

The car’s rarity and later donation to the IMS Museum led to the chassis having what RM Sotheby’s described as having “truly impeccable provenance”, with its value only increasing further by having an all-time F1 great driving it to victory in Fangio and another very highly-regarded driver in Moss taking the chassis on later in the year.

Its value eclipses the £19.6m paid for the only other W196R made available for auction at the 2013 Goodwood Festival of Speed, setting a new benchmark for Formula 1 car prices when sold at auction.

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