Niki Lauda’s 1984 Nürburgring Mercedes comes up for sale

The Mercedes 190E 2.3-16 Niki Lauda raced to second place in the 1984 Nürburgring celebrity race, comes up for auction. The car is up for sale at RM Sotheby’s auction at the Internationale St Moritzer Automobilwoche in Switzerland, on September 16^th.

Tazio readers recognize this car of course, it was one of our features in our very first issue. The 1984 celebrity race is still a much-talked-about event. It was organised in 1984, to celebrate the opening of the new, safer and more modern Nürburgring Grand Prix track, the shorter alternative to the Nordschleife.

World champions

For the event, Mercedes rounded up every living Formula 1 world champion at the time. You had Phil Hill, Stirling Moss, Jack Brabham, John Surtees, James Hunt, Denis Hulme, Alan Jones, Jody Scheckter, Lauda,… even Juan Manuel Fangio was present, but not as a driver. Mercedes added more (former) F1 drivers: Alain Prost (not yet a world champion), Elio de Angelis, Hans Herrmann, Keke Rosberg, and a young Brazilian no one had ever heard of: Ayrton Senna.

The cars were identical 190E 2.3-16 models, taken from the press presentation line-up and slightly tuned. “They weren’t race cars, not by a long shot”, then-technical responsible Gerhard Lepler told us for the story. A bolt-in roll cage was fitted, shorter final drive and Recaro seats were mounted at the front.

Senna wins, Lauda buys

The race itself became legendary, with Ayrton Senna dominating. Lauda, starting from the back because he hadn’t been able to practice, stormed through to second place. Very few of these cars survived in original condition. Senna’s car was wheeled into the Mercedes museum, and Lauda was one of the only ones to take Mercedes up on their offer to buy the car. He specified he wanted it ‘as raced’. The other cars were reverted back to stock-spec after the race. The only other known cars are the John Watson 190 and the one Manfred Schürti raced. Since no chassis list was made, knowing who drove which car is impossible. Unless for the cars named above.

Hugo Boss

Lauda owned it for a limited time, selling it to Hugo Boss heir Jochen Holy, who sold it in 1985 to a Mannheim-based owner. Under its current owner, the Lauda 190 was recommissioned by Mercedes Classic. It still hasn’t reached 33,000 kilometres on the odometer. Expectations are steep though, RM Sotheby’s has the car priced at 400,000 – 500,000 Swiss francs (418,000 – 522,970 euros, 454,520 – 568,665 USD).

More on the auction here. Read issue 1 for the full story on this car and that legendary race.