A $6M SLR With No Windshield Leads Nine Cars Closing December 2

RM Sotheby's Sealed has nine cars in sealed bidding from November 25 to December 2, and the top lot is a 2010 Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren Stirling Moss listed at a value in excess of $6,000,000 with 32.9 miles on it. The car is in Los Angeles. It will still be in Los Angeles when bidding closes, because a sealed sale has no room, no ring and no loading dock.

The nine lots sit in six cities across three countries. The SLR is in Los Angeles. A 2009 Ferrari Scuderia Spider 16M at $1,800,000 to $2,000,000 is in North Bergen, New Jersey. A 324-mile Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Black Series at $1,600,000 to $1,850,000 and a one-off SL 65 AMG Black Series at $600,000 to $750,000 are both in Troy, Michigan. The Porsche 911 Turbo Classic Series "Project Gold" is in Chatham, Ontario, and a 2021 AMG GT Black Series with 51 km on it is in Blenheim, Ontario. Three more are in Amsterdam: a 2024 Ferrari SF90 XX Spider, the Morgan Midsummer prototype, and the Ferrari F512 M painted by Peter Klasen. Four in the United States, two in Canada, three in the Netherlands, all closing the same day.

The transport angle

A live sale concentrates the logistics. Dozens of cars leave one building in one week, carriers stage enclosed equipment nearby, and outbound loads consolidate because several buyers are shipping from the same dock toward the same regions. Rates follow that. A sealed sale inverts it. Nine cars in six cities is nine separate pickups, each arranged from wherever the consignor keeps the car, so expect single-vehicle enclosed pricing rather than auction-dock pricing, and expect the number to swing on whether the pickup city sits on a lane carriers already run.

Los Angeles does. Los Angeles to New York is one of the busiest enclosed corridors in the country, which makes the SLR the easiest of the nine to move if the buyer is on the East Coast. Troy and North Bergen are both workable in December with one complication: enclosed capacity in the Midwest and Northeast is committed to southbound snowbird runs through the winter, and a northbound or lateral December pickup competes with that flow. Book a scheduled window, not a next-day request.

The two Ontario cars and the three in Amsterdam are a different job. Those are customs problems before they are trucking problems, and the paperwork sets the timeline, not the truck. International moves on cars at this value run on a customs broker's calendar.

Then there is the SLR itself. RM Sotheby's own catalogue copy for the model is blunt about what was left out of all 75 cars built: "this even included the windscreen and roof." No windshield, no roof, no side glass. That settles two decisions before anyone asks. Open transport is not a trade-off to weigh here, it is out. And deck position flips from the usual answer, because a car with an exposed interior wants the top-load position. Bottom-deck vehicles are the ones parked under whatever seeps from the car above them. A sealed cabin tolerates that. An open one does not.

The 32.9 miles matter as much as the price. The tires are original and sixteen years old whatever the tread looks like, the fluids have sat since 2009, and a loading ramp is a poor place to learn an unfamiliar clutch. Treat it as a winch load and put that on the order, because ramp versus liftgate is settled when the carrier routes equipment, not improvised by a driver at the curb.

What to do about it

Book before bidding closes rather than after. A sealed sale names the lot and its city weeks ahead, which is the one scheduling advantage it holds over a live room. By December 2 the good enclosed slots for the following week are already committed.

Ask RM Sotheby's for the exact pickup address and the site type. The listing gives a city, and the gap between a dealer with a dock, a climate-controlled collection and a residential garage on a narrow street is the gap between a two-hour load and a failed pickup.

Settle declared value and coverage in writing first. Standard cargo limits on enclosed equipment sit well under $6,000,000, and an agreed-value rider is the mechanism that closes the difference. Read the coverage terms before the sale ends, not after.

Then put the specifics on the booking: enclosed, top deck, winch load, wheel straps rather than over-the-tire soft straps on sixteen-year-old rubber, and the cockpit covered with nothing taped to paint. Carriers in our broker network will honor all five, but only if they are written down rather than mentioned on a call. The auction transport checklist covers the rest, and the same discipline applies to any Mercedes-Benz shipment worth more than the trailer carrying it.