Last Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren Stirling Moss ever built heads to auction with $6m estimate

The last Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren Stirling Moss ever built is heading to auction through RM Sotheby’s, with the house valuing the roofless 650-horsepower machine at more than $6 million (£4.5 million). Bidding in the online Sealed December sale runs from 25 November to 2 December.

Mercedes and McLaren produced exactly 75 Stirling Moss models between June and December 2009 as the definitive final variant of the SLR range. The car strips away the roof, windscreen and side windows entirely, leaving a supercharged V8 capable of 350 km/h. At launch it was priced at €750,000 and offered exclusively to existing SLR owners.

Chassis 75 carries a series of features that set it apart from the rest of the limited run. According to RM Sotheby’s, it is the only Stirling Moss finished in Fire Opal Red, and its red leather interior with yellow stitching, gold brake callipers and factory-fitted stereo — a specification believed to have been applied to just one other example from new — make it among the most distinctive of the 75 cars built.

The car was originally ordered by Kuwait’s royal family, completed at the factory in December 2009 and first registered in Switzerland on 16 March 2010 in the canton of Vaud. It most recently sold at Bonhams’ Zoute sale in Knokke-Heist, Belgium, on 6 October 2024, fetching €3.22 million without reserve.

The new owner subsequently shipped the car to the United States, where specialist workshop G&K Automotive in California made it road-legal under the Show or Display rule — a federal provision that allows small numbers of historically significant vehicles to be imported. Despite its age, the odometer reads just 32.9 miles from new.

Also featured in the same RM Sotheby’s sale are a 2009 Ferrari F430 Spider, a 2014 Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Black Series and a 2018 Porsche 911 Turbo Classic Series Project Gold.