A First-Owner SLR McLaren Stirling Moss Is Selling in Zürich. That Is the Rare Part.

Seventy-five SLR McLaren Stirling Moss speedsters were built, and at any given moment almost none of them are for sale. That, more than the Mille Miglia connection or the headline estimate, is the story of chassis 15, which Broad Arrow will offer at The Dolder Grand in Zürich on Saturday, Nov. 7, with an estimate of CHF 2.5 to 3 million. The car has had one owner since it was delivered in November 2009. Scarcity on this model is not a function of the build number. It is a function of owners who rarely sell.

A Short Specification, Documented

Chassis 15 is finished in Crystal Laurit Silver Metallic over black and red “300 SL Silver Arrow” leather, a pairing that echoes the 1950s Mercedes racing cars the model was built to honor. According to the catalogue, the first owner kept the order sheet brief: small-size body-contoured seats and little else, with the car documented by Dutch-language books and labels. It shows 13,410 km, and Broad Arrow reports a recent service in preparation for the sale.

Mechanically it is what the model always was: a supercharged 5.4-liter AMG V8 producing 641 horsepower, a five-speed automatic, and a carbon-fiber body penned by Yoon Il-hun with no roof, no windshield and more than 400 pounds removed from the SLR McLaren on which it is based, as Hagerty has detailed. It was offered only to existing SLR McLaren owners. That restriction matters more to the market than any figure on the spec sheet.

Why “Rare” Is the Wrong Lens

Seventy-five cars sounds rare, but plenty of 75-car editions trade every season. What sets the Stirling Moss apart is who held them: people who already owned an SLR and, in most cases, kept the car. When RM Sotheby’s sold one at Tegernsee in 2024, Hagerty noted that it was only the fourth to sell at auction and that six others offered since 2015 had failed to meet their reserves. Liquidity, not production, is the constraint. That is why a sale from a first owner is an event, and why we have followed the model closely, from the radical speedster design to a 600-mile example surfacing in Germany.

The public record is short enough to read in a glance. Currencies and fee treatment vary by source, so treat it as a range rather than a ladder.

Two things stand out. The lowest-distance cars set the ceiling: the 45-km car at Tegernsee and the sub-50-mile car at Zoute are the benchmarks for delivery-state originality. And the closest comparison to chassis 15 is Dubai, where a 9,233-km example made $3,211,250. Zürich’s estimate puts a car with roughly 45 percent more distance in the same general territory. It does not ask the room to treat use as a defect, but it does not demand a low-mileage premium either. The result will show where the market draws that line. For context on the estimate side, the Stirling Moss we previewed for RM Sotheby’s Paris, with 1,935 km, carried a $3.25 to $3.85 million estimate.

Three Editions of the Mille Miglia, and a Question Worth Asking

The model exists to commemorate Stirling Moss and Denis Jenkinson’s 1955 Mille Miglia victory in the Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR, car number 722, which covered the 1,597-km course in 10 hours, 7 minutes and 48 seconds at an average of about 157.65 km/h. It is the reason the Stirling Moss exists at all, and part of why the 300 SLR lineage keeps drawing collectors, as in our look at the Fangio family’s homage and the record result for Moss’s own W196 R.

Broad Arrow says chassis 15 was driven in the Mille Miglia in 2012, 2015 (the 60th anniversary of the victory) and 2021. For a tribute car, it is the most fitting use imaginable, and it is the kind of documented history a catalogue can verify. Precision matters here, though. The modern Mille Miglia is a regularity event open to cars built no later than 1957, so a 2009 speedster cannot be an entrant in the competition itself. Its three appearances were therefore presumably in a non-competitive capacity, and the catalogue’s wording is “driven in,” not “raced.” That is no reason to discount the car. It is a reason to ask what the paperwork says.

The more useful reading of 13,410 km is not the total but the rate. Spread across roughly 17 years, it is about 800 km a year: a car used deliberately, on occasions that suit its purpose, rather than stored or neglected. Collectors have learned to be wary of low mileage that comes without a story. This is a modest mileage that comes with one.

One Catalogue, Three SLRs

Zürich offers three SLRs. Alongside the Stirling Moss is a 2008 SLR McLaren Edition Roadster by McLaren Special Operations, one of six roadsters, estimated at CHF 575,000 to 675,000, and a 2005 SLR McLaren Coupé at CHF 250,000 to 300,000. The Stirling Moss estimate is roughly eight to twelve times the coupé’s. Same lineage, very different stories, and the gap says more about collector psychology than any engine output does. We have tracked the model’s other variants as well, including the Crown Edition and a 722S Roadster with under 1,500 miles.

On a 75-car run held by people who rarely sell, the scarce asset isn’t the car. It is the opportunity.

What Serious Buyers Should Ask

Start with the Mille Miglia: in what capacity the car took part in 2012, 2015 and 2021, and what entry records or event paperwork support it. Ask for confirmation of build number 15 of 75 and the original delivery specification from factory documentation, and have the Dutch-language books and labels read and matched to the car. Request the full service file, including the pre-sale service invoice, and any record of bodywork repair or repainting on the carbon-fiber shell. Finally, because the documentation suggests a Netherlands-market delivery and the sale is in Switzerland, buyers outside the country should settle registration, import and VAT questions before the hammer falls.

The sale takes place Saturday, Nov. 7, at The Dolder Grand, one of more than 80 cars on offer. More Zürich coverage: the Monteverdi 375/4 lot of the day and our market brief on the Sport quattro. An estimate is a forecast. The hammer is the only verdict, and for chassis 15 it will say whether collectors pay more for a car that was kept, or for one that was driven.