It turns out museums operate just like car-hoarding enthusiasts: They sometimes need to sell cars to free up space and money. That's why some of the most expensive classics in the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum will cross the auction block before the end of the year.
Auction house RM Sotheby's has been commissioned to sell more than 10 cars from the museum's collection. Shown in the gallery above, the highlight from the sale is a 1954 Mercedes-Benz W196 "Monza" Streamliner driven by Stirling Moss and Juan Manuel Fangio. It was an open-wheel race car when Fangio raced it in Buenos Aires in the 1950s, and it had been fitted with a more streamlined closed-wheel body by the time Moss raced it at the 1955 edition of the Italian Grand Prix. The aerodynamic styling helped him set the fastest lap time.
There's another hugely significant race car in the batch: a 1964 Ferrari 250 LM assigned chassis number 5893. Also shown in our gallery, it won first overall in the 1965 edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. If you're looking for something a little bit more obscure to add to your fleet, how about the 1957 Chevrolet Corvette SS Project XP64? It's a magnesium-bodied prototype whose first, last, and only race was the 1957 12 Hours of Sebring. It dropped out of the race due to technical issues, but it shaped the regular-production Corvette for years to come.
The full list of cars that the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum is parting with is as follows:
- 1907 Itala
- 1909 Mercedes Brookland "Semmering Hill Cilmb"
- 1911 Laurin & Klement Racer
- 1911 Mercedes 22/40 Touring
- 1929 Bugatti Type 35C
- 1954 Mercedes-Benz W196 "Monza" Streamliner
- 1957 Chevrolet Corvette SS Project XP64
- 1964 Ferrari 250 LM
- 1964 Sonic I "The Spirit of America" land-speed record car
- 1966 Ford GT40 Mark II (chassis number P/1032)
- 1991 Benetton B191 Formula One car
The W196 will be displayed at RM's Monterey sale, August 15-17, and it could sell for up to $70 million when it crosses the block. The cars will be sold "in a series of auctions beginning in the fall of 2024," RM said, though a specific timeline hasn't been released. RM notes that the museum is selling off these highly valuable models "to support its long-term financial sustainability." It's currently closed for renovations, so adding a six-digit sum to its bank account should help it complete its various ongoing projects.
"If we can have that kind of funding in the bank, the interest income alone is going to allow us to buy new things for our collection, take care of our restoration staff, and take care of our cars," said Joe Hale, the museum's president, in an interview with local news outlet WRTV. He added that none of the cars on the list above are related to the Indianapolis 500. "They have no connection to the 500; they never ran here."
The museum is scheduled to re-open in April 2025.
