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We’ve been busy covering Barrett-Jackson this week, but there are plenty of other auctions going on in Scottsdale as well. One of those is Gooding & Company, which has been selling some pretty incredible cars. Perhaps the most significant is this 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing, which is just one of 29 built with an aluminum alloy body.

Standard 300SL Gullwing prices can exceed a million dollars, but this particular example was expected to sell for anywhere between ,500,000 and ,000,000. These alloy 300SL Gullwings come up for sale infrequently, though, which is perhaps why the final bid of .2 million was so high. With auction fees, the final selling price of the 300SL was an incredible .62 million, a new record for this car.

You can read more about this particular 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300SL Alloy after the jump, and check out photos of the car in the gallery above.

Continue reading Rare 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300SL Alloy sells for record .62 million

Rare 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300SL Alloy sells for record .62 million originally appeared on Autoblog on Sun, 22 Jan 2012 10:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Motorsports has had plenty of dark days in its history, but few compare to the 1955 24 Hours of Le Mans. That race saw Lance Macklin enter this Austin-Healey 100 S Prototype in the legendary European 24-hour race in his name. The vehicle packed a 140-horsepower inline four-cylinder engine with a massive cam and dual carbs, and while Macklin was able to keep the vehicle in decent standing throughout the first racing stint, he eventually found himself being lapped by the substantially quicker sports-prototype vehicles from Jaguar and Mercedes-Benz. As the Austin-Healey came barreling past the pits, a Jaguar D-Type slowed abruptly as it came in for fuel, forcing to Macklin to swerve out of the way.

That’s when the Austin-Healey was struck from the rear by a Mercedes-Benz 300SLR on the rear quarter. The Mercedes-Benz catapulted into a retaining bank and disintegrated, spraying the crowd with flaming debris, including the vehicle’s engine. A total of 84 individuals died as a result of the crash, including Pierre Levegh, the driver of the 300SLR. A further 120 people sustained injuries of varying severity, and the crash prompted an international revision of safety precautions at race tracks.

The Austin-Healey, meanwhile, spent a year in police impound before being repaired and sold to a private individual. It’s spent the last 42 years owned by a single individual, with many of those in storage. The vehicle went up for auction on December 1 and brought a final bid of £843,000, or over .3 million. Hit the jump for the full press release as well as a video of the horrific crash. Head over to Bonhams for plenty of vintage photography of the vehicle.

Continue reading Infamous Le Mans 1955 Austin-Healey 100S Prototype sold for .3 million [w/video]

Infamous Le Mans 1955 Austin-Healey 100S Prototype sold for .3 million [w/video] originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 01 Dec 2011 18:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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While the wicked E-Rod LSA found its way into a Superformance Grand Sport Coupe at this year’s SEMA show, General Motors decided to plop the company’s new E-Rod LS3 into something a little more traditional. GM yanked the sheets off of an expertly-crafted 1955 Chevrolet pickup street rod. The project started by mating a minty-fresh Dynacorn body with the chassis of a Trailblazer SS. Throw in a 315-horsepower, 335-pound-feet of torque E-Rod LS3 and you’ve got the basic ingredients for one very lust-worthy pickup.

GM says that the new E-Rod LS3 will command a price tag of ,150 when it arrives in 2011. Hit the jump for the press release.

Photos copyright (C)2010 Zach Bowman / AOL

[Source: GM]

Continue reading SEMA 2010: 1955 Chevrolet E-Rod LS3 Pickup is ready to haul

SEMA 2010: 1955 Chevrolet E-Rod LS3 Pickup is ready to haul originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 03 Nov 2010 02:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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