TOP 10 Most Expensive Cars Ever Sold (Yep, People Really Paid That Much)
6th Aug 2025
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Image: 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupé on display at the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart, Germany. Photo by Ank Kumar, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
So… who’s out here buying £100 million cars? We get it – dropping eye-watering amounts of money on a car sounds like something out of a Bond film. But nope, it’s real. People have actually spent more on one car than most of us would spend on a house. Or ten. And we’re not talking about cars with gold-plated bumpers or built-in espresso machines (though honestly, wouldn’t say no to that). We’re talking about old classics, the kind that barely ever go up for sale and have stories that stretch back through wars, racetracks, and dusty garages. At Dace Motor Company, we’re used to seeing all sorts of cars – from trusty little hatchbacks perfect for Stockport school runs to sleek German saloons for those weekend Manchester dashes. But these cars? Different league. We’re talking museum-quality stuff here. The thing is, even though most of us won’t be forking out £50 million for a Ferrari any time soon, it’s still a fascinating peek into what makes some cars so ridiculously desirable. It’s not always about speed, either. Sometimes it’s about history. Or rarity. Or just the fact that one bloke outbid another bloke at a posh auction in Monaco after one too many glasses of champagne. So grab a brew, settle in, and prepare to have your eyebrows slowly climb off your forehead.
1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupe – Sold for £107 million
Yep. You read that right. One hundred and fifteen. Million. Pounds. This one broke every record ever. It’s a 1955 Merc that looks like it was designed to race spaceships. Only two of these cars were ever made, and they were named after Rudolf Uhlenhaut, the engineer who designed them. He even used one as his company car. Imagine pulling up to Greg Street in that? It sold at a secret auction in 2022, and not many people even knew it was happening. The winning bid? Over £107 million. That’s not just a car – that’s a chunk of motoring history that also happens to go like a rocket. And get this – it wasn’t even road legal. The buyer can’t legally drive it to Asda, but let’s be honest, they probably weren’t planning a quick dash down the A6 anyway.
1962 Ferrari 250 GTO – Sold for £35 million
This one’s a bit of a celebrity in the car world. The Ferrari 250 GTO is the kind of car that gets grown adults all misty-eyed. It’s not just rare, it’s practically mythical. Only 36 of these beauties were built, and every single one has its own story. One got crashed in a race. Another won a championship. One was hidden away in a barn for years. And every time one goes up for sale, collectors go into full-on frenzy mode. This particular one? Sold in 2018 to a collector in the U.S. for the equivalent of £35 million. That’s more than a fancy hotel in Dubai – or half of Stockport, depending how you look at it. Why’s it worth so much? It’s part racing car, part sculpture, and 100% legend. If you’ve ever stood next to one (or, more likely, seen one on YouTube), you’ll know. It just looks like money.
1957 Ferrari 335 Sport Scaglietti – Sold for £27 million
Here’s another Ferrari that made headlines – not just for its price tag, but for the name attached to it. This one was owned by the famous driver Stirling Moss. That alone would’ve added a few zeros, but the car’s racing history sealed the deal. It raced in the 1957 Mille Miglia and other iconic events. Then it sat in a private collection until it was sold in Paris in 2016. The final hammer price? Just shy of £27 million. The shape of this car is pure ’50s racing. Long, sleek, impossibly pretty. You can picture it tearing through winding roads in Italy, with crowds cheering as it screams past. It’s not just a car – it’s a snapshot of a different time.
1954 Mercedes-Benz W196 – Sold for £19 million
This one’s all about racing heritage. The W196 isn’t a flashy street car – it’s a proper Grand Prix race car. You know, the kind with no roof, big open wheels, and a noise like thunder mixed with metal. It was driven by Juan Manuel Fangio (legend, by the way) and helped Mercedes dominate F1 in the mid-1950s. When it went up for sale at a Bonhams auction in 2013, it smashed all the records back then. It’s not exactly the kind of car you could use for the school run or the drive-thru. But if you’re into F1 history, this is one of the holy grails.
1967 Ferrari 275 GTB/4S NART Spider – Sold for £19 million
There’s rare. And then there’s this. Only 10 of these open-top Ferraris were made, and this one was owned by a single family for decades. The family eventually decided to sell it and give the proceeds to charity. It was auctioned off in 2013, and people were scrambling to get their hands on it. You could say it’s the ultimate Ferrari convertible – elegant, fast, and built like a sculpture. It’s the kind of car you could imagine parked outside a beach house in Monaco, sun gleaming off the red paint, keys casually tossed on a marble counter somewhere. You know…if that was your life.
1962 Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato – Sold for £12 million
We had to include something a bit closer to home, right? The DB4 Zagato is pure British class. It’s like James Bond but louder and faster. Designed in collaboration with Italian coachbuilder Zagato, it’s got curves for days and a serious racing attitude underneath. This one sold in 2018 for about £12 million – not too shabby for a car that was once built to take on Ferrari. There are only a handful of these out there, and they almost never go up for sale. So when one pops up at auction, collectors go absolutely bonkers.
1936 Bugatti Type 57SC Atlantic – Estimated £90 million (Private Sale)
Now, this one’s a bit mysterious. It was sold in a private deal, so there’s no hard number – but people in the know reckon it fetched somewhere in the range of £90 million. Why so much? Only four were made. One of them’s missing. Another one was in a fatal crash. That leaves two, and one of them was snapped up by an anonymous buyer. Some say it’s Ralph Lauren. Others say it’s a museum. Either way, it’s not sitting in a Tesco car park. This Bugatti looks like something out of a Tim Burton film – long, low, and impossibly dramatic. Not everyone’s cup of tea, but in the car world? It’s royalty.
1964 Ferrari 250 LM – Sold for £14 million
Back to Ferrari again. Are you sensing a theme here? The 250 LM is the last Ferrari to ever win the 24 Hours of Le Mans outright – which is no small feat. This one was sold in New York in 2015, and even though it didn’t fetch the same eye-melting price as the GTO, it still came in at around £14 million. It’s basically the end of an era – the final “old school” race car Ferrari built before things got more high-tech. Proper car nuts love this one, and it’s easy to see why.
1935 Duesenberg SSJ – Sold for £17 million
Here’s one you might not expect. An American classic – big, bold, and built like a battleship. The Duesenberg SSJ was the ultimate pre-war status symbol, and this one was once owned by actor Gary Cooper. Only two SSJs were ever made. They were longer than your average bus and twice as cool. When it went up for auction in 2018, it became the most expensive American car ever sold. And honestly? It deserved it.
1959 Ferrari 250 GT LWB California Spider Competizione – Sold for £13 million
Last but definitely not least – this Ferrari ticks all the boxes: rare, beautiful, and with a proper racing pedigree. It sold at Pebble Beach in 2016, and you could practically hear the gasps around the room
