Rare $10 Million Mercedes CLK GTR Roadster w/ HRE Wheels

A very rare silver 2002 Mercedes-Benz CLK GTR Roadster driving and being loaded into a transporter after "Prebble", a Pre-Monterey (Pre-Pebble Beach) gathering at Oakley headquarters presented by Ancillary Studios in collaboration with HyperSociety. The CLK GTR (chassis code C297) Straßenversion (street version) was built by Mercedes-Benz and AMG to meet homologation requirements for the FIA GT Championship where Mercedes-Benz would win the Drivers’ and Constructors’ Championship in 1997 with the CLK GTR race car. 20 Straßenversion coupes were built in the initial production run along with a single Roadster. The Roadster required numerous revisions to accommodate the roof (and roof scoop) removal, including repositioned intakes and integrated roll hoops behind the seats. Five additional Roadsters would later be built by HWA using existing CLK GTR chassis. This example is no. 3 of the six Roadsters built and was sold for $10,235,000 at the 2023 RM Sotheby's auction in Las Vegas with only 170 kilometers displayed on its odometer. It has been modified by Boden Autohaus with HRE Vintage Series 501 wheels in Polished Clear.

This car is the embodiment of everything awesome about Mercedes-Benz and everything awesome about exotic supercars in general. The CLK GTR street version came into existence only because of homologation rules, and as probably the ultimate expression of "Win on Sunday, Sell on Monday", the folks at Mercedes slapped a CLK badge on it and gave it CLK headlights and taillights even though it had pretty much nothing else in common with the humble C-Class-based coupe. Then, rather than just meeting the homologation quota and calling it a day, those lunatics decided to take what was already one of the wildest street-legal cars money could buy and chop off the top. Keep in mind this was a time when track-focused cars were rarely offered as convertibles due to structural compromises. And in the CLK GTR's case, the chop job also required extensive modifications to other parts of the bodywork to maintain performance and safety. All that work, just so the company could sell a whopping six cars. This world never needed a million-dollar open-top street-legal version of a GT1 race car named after an everyday series production coupe. But that's exactly why everything about it - including the very fact that it exists - is just so frickin' awesome. And that's exactly why it's now worth an insane ten million dollars.

The custom HREs are a cool touch, though I don't think they bring out the car's character or transform its curb appeal dramatically enough to justify what many would consider sacrilege. For most people, simply seeing any CLK GTR is enough to achieve maximum boasting rights, regardless of whether or not it's been modified. Any attempt to make the car further stand out is like an overachiever in school who already has a perfect GPA and still insists on doing extra credit. But hey, if you can plunk down eight figures for a car that, by all reasonable standards, really shouldn't even exist, adding a little more wow factor really can't hurt, right?

Would you put custom wheels on a CLK GTR Roadster? Leave a comment on YouTube and let me know!