10 cars. Over $300 million total. Here are the 10 most expensive cars ever sold at RM Sotheby’s auctions. One raced in Le Mans. Another sat untouched for decades. And the #1 car? It beat every expectation and every record. From rare Ferraris to record-breaking Formula 1 machines, this list will leave you questioning what “expensive” really means. Let’s jump in.
2013 MERCEDES-AMG PETRONAS F1 W04
A Formula 1 car once driven by Lewis Hamilton shattered records at auction. It’s the 2013 Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 W04, chassis number F1W04-04. The same beast Hamilton drove in 14 of 19 races in his debut season with Mercedes. The same one that won him the Hungarian Grand Prix, his very first win with the team. And on November 17, 2023, in Las Vegas, this car roared past expectations and sold for a jaw-dropping $18.8 million at RM Sotheby’s, beating even the previous modern F1 record held by a Schumacher Ferrari. It still has its original race look and that powerful 2.4-litre V8 engine, which is one of the last naturally aspirated engines in F1. Plus, it’s the only modern Mercedes F1 car not owned by the company, Toto Wolff, or Hamilton.
1939 ALFA ROMEO 8C 2900 B LUNGO TOURING SPIDER
What if I told you one of the world’s most beautiful Alfa Romeos was once stripped down, raced with a Chevy engine in Brazil, and nearly lost forever, only to come back and break auction records? This is the 1939 Alfa Romeo 8C 2900B Lungo Touring Spider, one of only seven ever made with a mysterious past. In 1949, it was shipped from Italy to Brazil by racer Mario Tavares Leite, who stripped off its elegant Italian body (except the grille!) and slapped on a new one. He raced and won with it, but after 1950… the car vanished. Years later, it reappeared with a Corvette V8 under the hood and a shortened chassis! But here’s where it gets wild: in 1997, the original Touring body was reunited with the chassis, which was re-lengthened, and the original Alfa driveline was brought back. Sam and Emily Mann had it fully restored by Tony Merrick, and the result? You can see it with your own eyes. It won second in class at Pebble Beach, “Most Elegant Car” at Cavallino… and at RM Sotheby’s in 2016, it was auctioned with a price tag of $19,800,000.
1994 MCLAREN F1
This was one of those “blink and you miss it” moments. The 1994 McLaren F1 LM-Spec appeared at RM Sotheby’s Monterey auction, and in just four and a half minutes, it was gone and sold for $19.8 million. And let me tell you, this one was one of only two in the world ever upgraded post-production by McLaren itself to full LM specs. Originally finished in Midnight Blue and delivered to Japan in 1994, this car travelled through Germany, Singapore, and New Zealand, and covered just over 13,000 miles. A US collector now owns one of the rarest and most valuable McLarens ever made. The rest of us just watched it disappear into history.
1955 JAGUAR D-TYPE
To conquer Le Mans was the only job this D-Type was made for, with cutting-edge tech for its time. This particular car, chassis XKD 501, made history in 1956 by winning Le Mans with the Ecurie Ecosse team, driven by Ninian Sanderson and Ron Flockhart, averaging over 104 mph. After a few tough races and DNFs, the car landed in the hands of Sir Michael Nairn in 1970, who restored it to its original Le Mans glory. By 1999, it had crossed the Atlantic, and in 2016, it went under the hammer, setting a record for the highest price ever paid for a British car at auction. But that title didn’t last long, as another British icon came for the throne and we’ll be talking about that one soon.
1956 Aston Martin DBR1
Do you know what’s the most valuable British car to ever sell at auction?
Well, there’s a new answer… the 1956 Aston Martin DBR1/1, sold by RM Sotheby’s for a wild $22.55 million at the 2017 Monterey sale. This is chassis number one. The original. The one that debuted at the 1959 Nürburgring 1000km and carved its name into motorsport history. After a fumble by co-driver Jack Fairman dropped the car to fourth, Stirling Moss got behind the wheel and stormed back to win by smashing his previous lap record in a Mercedes 300SL by over a minute! Designed by Ted Cutting under David Brown’s vision, the DBR1 was Aston’s answer to Ferrari after the 1955 rule changes allowed purpose-built race cars. And guess what? The $22 million winning bid wasn’t even made in person as someone literally phoned it in. That’s how iconic this car is.
1956 FERRARI 290MM SPYDER
The 1956 Ferrari 290MM Spyder went under the hammer for $28,050,000, and here’s why. It was a championship-winning factory racer, hand-built by Ferrari to strike back after losing the 1955 title to Mercedes. Imagine a Ferrari so legendary, it needed five racing icons like Fangio, Phil Hill, Stirling Moss, von Trips and Peter Collins just to match its power. This exact car, chassis 0626, debuted at the Mille Miglia and finished second. It then conquered the Nürburgring, Sweden, and Buenos Aires, securing Ferrari’s comeback in the World Sportscar Championship. After retiring from racing, it featured in two of the world’s most exclusive collections, first Luigi Chinetti’s in America, then Pierre Bardinon’s in France. So when it rolled onto the RM Sotheby’s auction floor in 2015, it was racing royalty, with a track record and a driver lineup worth its weight in gold. No wonder it sold for over $28 million.
1964 Ferrari 250 LM BY SCAGLIETTI
This Le Mans-winning Ferrari got sold for over $36 million. It was the sixth of only 32 ever built and is the only Ferrari from the Enzo era to compete in six 24-hour races. Driven by Masten Gregory and Jochen Rindt under Luigi Chinetti’s North American Racing Team, it remains the only privately entered Ferrari to win the legendary race. That win also sealed Ferrari’s historic streak of six back-to-back Le Mans victories. After dominating both Le Mans and Daytona, it retired in 1970 and was placed in the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum for over 50 years. And now, it has roared back into the spotlight, selling for $36.3 million at RM Sotheby’s.
1962 Ferrari 250 GTO/330LM
This isn’t just another Ferrari on the list. It’s the most expensive Ferrari ever sold at an RM auction, and the only 250 GTO ever raced by the Scuderia Ferrari factory team, rather than being handed off to privateers like most others. Chassis 3765LM debuted at the Nürburgring 1000 KM in 1962, finishing second, and later lined up at Le Mans with a newly upgraded 4.0L V12 and revised bodywork. The race didn’t end well and the engine failed, but its legacy was already locked in. Years later, it changed hands from Trieste to Sicily, even reached the U.S., and saw hill climbs, restorations, and concours wins. Only 24 GTOs were ever built, so when it crossed the auction block at RM Sotheby’s in 2023, it wasn’t surprising that it pulled in $51.7 million, making it the most valuable Ferrari ever sold.
1955 Mercedes W196 R Stromlinienwagen
I never thought I’d see a car auction for this high a price… until now. Someone paid over $53.9 million for a car. And no, it wasn’t gold-plated or diamond-encrusted. It was a 1954 Mercedes-Benz W196 R Stromlinienwagen. Sold at the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart, it made history as the most expensive F1 car ever sold and the second most expensive car ever, period. This exact car, chassis 00009/54, was driven by the legend Juan Manuel Fangio and even won the 1955 Buenos Aires Grand Prix. It’s also been driven by Sir Stirling Moss, because of course it has. And while it’s an F1 car, it doesn’t look like one. It’s fully covered, and that’s what Stromlinienwagen means: “streamliner.” Only four of these streamliners were ever built, and this one is the only example ever offered to private buyers. Mercedes donated it to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum in 1965, where it stayed for nearly 60 years before going up for sale. The auction was wild: bidding wars, phones ringing, people in the room throwing out numbers like Monopoly money. The proceeds went straight into upgrading the IMS Museum. Expensive? Absolutely. Worth it? If you’ve got the cash, maybe.
1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupe
$143 million. Yeah, million. With an M. That’s what someone paid for a 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupe, when most people said Mercedes would never sell it. Only two were ever made. This one, nicknamed “Red” for its interior, was used as a daily driver by Rudolf Uhlenhaut, the man who built it. He once drove it from Stuttgart to Munich in under two hours. No traffic, apparently. It was meant to race in the Carrera Panamericana, but after the tragic Le Mans crash in 1955 that killed 84 people, Mercedes withdrew from racing entirely, and the car was locked away in their vault for decades. In 2022, it was sold through RM Sotheby’s at a private auction inside the Mercedes Museum. The price crushed the previous record by almost triple. The $143 million received was used by Mercedes to start a scholarship fund for climate research.
