The Graduation Gift: A Mercedes-Benz 540 K Special Roadster

In the world of car collecting documented lineage can enhance a car’s value, in the case of the von Krieger Special Roadster we have a Mercedes-Benz 540 K with an extraordinary past.

Today getting a car for a graduation gift, while not common, it isn’t unheard of.  But in 1936, this Mercedes-Benz 540 K, one of the first 50 off the line, was beyond unbelievable as a graduation gift for 19 year old Henning von Krieger.

The roughly $7,000 in 1936 is about $118,000+ in 2014.  His mother custom ordered this extravagant gift to include:

• pigskin upholstery
• ultra-modern Telefunken radio featuring stations of European cities
• full-leather dashboard
• burl wood writing table
• flat, as oppose to convex, headlamp lenses, to accommodate Parisian regulation yellow bulbs
• hand painted von Krieger family crest
• Sindelfingen coachwork

Upon delivery the privileged von Krieger family enjoyed a glamorous life racing through 1930’s Paris to all the high society haunts.  During 1939 at the outbreak of WWII, Henning returned to Germany and shipped the car to Mercedes-Benz for maintenance and repairs.  The car was then delivered to his sister, Gisela, to Switzerland in 1942 where the glamorous Baroness enjoyed daily use of the car until the family left for sanctuary of the United States in 1949.  Baroness von Krieger was known internationally for her elegant style and as one of the most fashionable women in the world.  Though she could drive any automobile of her choosing she enjoyed tooling around in the bewitching 540 K and continued to do so when they relocated to Greenwich, Connecticut in the 1950’s.

In 1958 the family departed for Switzerland but due to the untimely death of her brother and mother in 1959, the captivating Baroness never returned to Greenwich or to her beloved Mercedes-Benz.   She remained a recluse until her death in 1989, though intermittently contacted by interested car collectors who along with Mercedes-Benz tried to purchase the sought after Special Roadster from the Baroness.  The car resided in a Greenwich garage for almost 40 years until the final settlement of her estate allowed the car to be successfully sold in 1996.  As an untouched time capsule the car included the red lipstick stained cigarette butts from the Baroness in the car’s ashtray, travel maps and a pair of her silk gloves, after all she planned on returning. Technically in today’s terminology, in 1996 prior to restoration this is what we call a “barn find”.

While these seem to be mere tidbits of a bygone era they add to the cache of what is already an incredible automobile.  Want proof provenance equals value?  At the 2012 Gooding & Company Auction in Pebble Beach, (where I took the above pictures) this car sold for $11.77 million.

Forget graduation, let’s go hunting for a barn find!