'Hitler' Mercedes-Benz sale to benefit Simon Wiesenthal Cntr
Hitler's infamous Mercedes-Benz 770K Grosser will be auctioned in Scottsdale, Arizona and a portion of the sale will be donated to the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
Someone was willing to spend $7 million to buy a Mercedes-Benz once used by Adolf Hitler, but the high bid wasn’t high enough to close the deal for the infamous automobile.
The 1939 Mercedes-Benz 770K Grosser Offener Tourenwagen, originally purchased for a fleet used by Hitler and other dignitaries in Nazi Germany, was being offered at the Worldwide Auctioneers event in Scottsdale, Ariz., last week.
The four-door convertible was seized by U.S. forces in France at the end of the war and soon passed into private hands. It been sold several times since.
At one point, it was owned by notorious Nazi Relic collector Ralph Engelstad, and put on public display in a museum at his Imperial Palace casino in Las Vegas.
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The car’s last known sale was in 2009, when an anonymous collector in Russia bought it for an unknown amount likely in the millions. This same owner is believed to be the one trying to unload it today, and has pledged to donate 10 percent of the sale price to the Simon Wiesenthal Center to help fund education about the Holocaust.
But while the $7 million bid didn’t meet the seller’s reserve price, the auction house tells The Arizona Republic that private negotiations for a sale will continue after the auction.
Prior to the auction, a top classic car valuation expert told Fox News that the rare car was likely worth $5 million to $7 million on its own merits without the Hitler connection.