A 1954 Mercedes-Benz W196 driven by the legendary Juan Manuel Fangio will soon be available to car collectors with deep pockets.
The Mercedes race car is one of several from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum collection that will be sold by RM Sotheby's throughout 2024 and 2025. Proceeds from the sales will help fund the museum, according to a press release. With an estimated sale price of $50 million to $70 million, the W196 will certainly contribute to that goal.
Fangio was one of the first stars of the Formula 1 championship, competing from its first season in 1950. He won five championships, a record that stood for 46 years until Michael Schumacher broke it. Even today, only Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton have won more championships than Fangio, at seven apiece.
1954 Mercedes-Benz W196 (image via RM Sotheby's)
While he won championships with no less than four constructors, much of Fangio's success came behind the wheel of the W196, which was introduced for the 1954 racing season and carried the Argentinian to the championship that year. It was a sophisticated car for the time, boasting a 2.5-liter inline-8 laid over on its side to reduce frontal area. The engine had desmodromic valves and mechanical direct injection, allowing it to develop 257 hp.
The W196 up for sale was built as an open-wheel car, like most grand prix racers. Fangio raced it in this configuration at a non-points race in Buenos Aires in 1954. The car was then fitted with enclosed "streamliner" bodywork for the 1955 Italian Grand Prix at Monza, where it was driven by another racing legend—Stirling Moss. Mercedes then used it as a practice and test car before donating it to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum in 1965.
By that time, Mercedes had been out of top-level motorsport for a decade. The automaker withdrew from competition following the 1955 24 Hours of Le Mans disaster, in which Pierre Levegh's Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR vaulted into a grandstand, killing Levegh and scores of spectators. The W196 would be the last factory-run Mercedes F1 car until the W01 of 2010, although Mercedes had been supplying engines to McLaren and other teams before that.
1954 Mercedes-Benz W196 (image via RM Sotheby's)
The estimated sale price of this car dwarfs that of the Fangio-driven W196 that sold for $29.7 million at auction in 2013. That car, which featured open-wheel bodywork, was driven by Fangio to his first F1 win with Mercedes at the 1954 German Grand Prix. Fangio also won the 1954 Swiss Grand Prix in that car.
While it is an important piece of racing history, the Fangio/Moss W196 doesn't have a direct connection to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and is beyond the museum's focus. All museums have limited resources to care for artifacts, and deaccessioning less-relevant pieces is a common process. Other notable cars up for sale include the Ferrari 250 LM that won the 1965 24 Hours of Le Mans and a 1966 Ford GT Mk II run by Holman-Moody and driven by Mark Donohue at Le Mans and the 12 Hours of Sebring.
