Fangio’s 1954 Mercedes W196R F1 car sells for £19.6 million (video)

Fangio’s 1954 Mercedes W196R F1 (pictured) sells for £19 million The Goodwood Festival of Speed is all about cars and performance, but it’s not just cars on the ground and on the hillclimb. Goodwood is a Mecca for wealthy petrolheads as well as those who can only lust after the finest motoring metal – classic and current – so it’s a sensible place to run an auction for high-end cars. And you can’t get much more ‘high-emd- – at least in terms of value – than Juan Manuel Fangio’s 1954 Mercedes W196R Formula One car which went under the hammer yesterday at Bonham’s Goodwood auction, and reached a world record auction price of £19,601,500 (including premium – £17.5m before).

Hottest 911 ever!

A few weeks back, we revealed spy shots of the next-gen Porsche 911 GT2. But now the Web is awash in reports from a Porsche dealer meeting in Germany where the company revealed the even-hotter GT2 RS. Reportedly pushing 620 hp from its turbocharged boxer-six engine, the track- and street-legal GT2 RS is said to be 200 pounds lighter than the GT2.

Record British car exports

By Ben Oliver Motor Industry 29 January 2008 11:27 Britain exported more cars in 2007 than in any previous year, with total production up six percent to over 1.5 million. A record 1.18m cars, or 77 percent of production, were sent overseas. Britain’s record year for car production was 1972, when 1.9m cars were produced.