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115-Year-Old Mercedes to be Sold at Bonhams Auction
A rare, fully restored, 115-year-old Benz Ideal will be the oldest motorcar offered at Bonhams Mercedes-Benz auction in Germany later this month.
The Benz Ideal was an early development of the original, groundbreaking combustion-engined motor car, the Vélocipede, commonly known as the Velo, and is estimated to fetch up to £200,000 at the sale which will feature more than 40 lots of collectors’ motor cars.
Introduced in 1898, the Ideal features a steel chassis and a 4½ horsepower single cylinder engine. It was designed to compete with models produced by the growing number of manufacturers in the turn-of-the-century car market.
Philip Kantor, Bonhams Head of European Motorcars, said: “A regular entrant and successful finisher on the London to Brighton Veteran Car Run, this definitive Patent Motorwagen is now 115 years old and going strong – a testament to the strong foundations of Mercedes-Benz engineering.”
Bonhams Mercedes-Benz Sale will take place on 28th March in the Mercedes-Benz Museum, Stuttgart, Germany.