Two CLK GTRs Fall Under The Hammer

Two 'million-pound Mercs' up for auction at a bargain price...

You may remember the Mercedes CLK GTR as the 'million pound car'. Well, now the only two right-hand drive examples of the ultra-rare 612bhp homologation special are coming up for auction and, despite their impressive rarity, both are expected to fetch less than half of their original price.

A coupe and an even-rarer roadster variant are going under the hammer at the end of October, both cars have only delivery miles on the clock and have never been registered.

How they came to be in this state has not been revealed, but we'd guess a private collector may be 'liquidating' some prize pieces as the global economy continues to flounder. We had heard previously that there was only ever one right-hand drive CLK GTR, built for that petrolhead among, er, petrol, the Sultan of Brunei, but now the situation seems less clear.

This particular coupe is apparently number 13 of 25 built. It wasn't even delivered until 2005, which is a little surprising given that by then most CLK GTRs weren't even in their warranty period anymore! Its 6.9-litre V12 has propelled it only 25 kilometres since new, which is roughly half-a-blink in CLK GTR terms, and the showroom-fresh coupe is expected to fetch £370,000-£390,000.

The roadster example up for sale is even newer, with production completed in '06, and again the description insists that it's the only right-hand drive example of its kind. Only five roadsters were ever built, and this is apparently number 2, originally sold for 1.3 million euros. It makes you wince a bit to think that the same car, just 34 kilometres later, is estimated at £430,000 - £500,000. Somewhere along the line, it's lost a four-bed detached house-worth of value...

RM Auctions is holding the sale on 28 October in London. Best not drive there, though - apparently adding miles to your car can seriously affect its value...