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Stirling Moss’s Mercedes 500SL has come up for auction for an estimated... £12k

Bargain price for a car loaded with tech and provenance and grey. Plus, you get a signed a letter from Sir Stirling to prove it was his personal car

Published: 04 Jun 2024

Sir Stirling Moss’s 1992 Mercedes Benz 500SL is up for auction later this month and surprisingly, the estimated sale price tops out at a suspiciously reasonable £12,000. Start counting the quids in the piggy bank.

The 'best F1 driver never to win a championship' bought the now delightful R129 from new, picking it up from Bremen in Germany and driving it straight back to Blighty, where he registered it with the personal plate ‘7 SM’. Because of course he did.

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Sir Stirling's cleverness of course, came in opting for the lighter 500SL rather than the V12-powered 600SL available at the time. That 500 featured a 329bhp 5.0-litre V8 able to hit 62mph in 6.2 seconds. What you'd call 'punchy', for the Nineties.

You'd also call it 'loaded to the gunwales with tech'... for the Nineties, including a rollover bar, fantastically complex seats that won awards and those most excellent rain-sensing wipers.

Sir Moss's Merc has only done 89,000 miles (25,600 of those added during his tenure). There were another three owners after him, and every one has kindly kept it in great condition, according to auction house H&H Classics.

It'll go under the hammer on 19 June at Duxford Imperial War Museum. With provenance like that, surely this has to be bargain of the year?

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