Dominating Formula 1 in the 1950s when it was raced by the legendary Stirling Moss and Juan Manuel Fangio the 1954 Mercedes W 196 was the world’s most valuable car when it was sold in the mid 1990s. A French industrialist bought the Mercedes W 196 for $24 million in the 1990s, equivalent to almost R194 million today. However, the current owner, a German businessman, apparently paid less than half that amount when he bought the car just a few years later.