This ultra-rare 300 SL ‘Alloy’ Gullwing is perhaps the flagship of the collection (Image: Kegun Morkin for RM Sotheby’s)
It’s often amazing to discover just what cars people have tucked away inside their sheds, but this collection of decaying classics set to be auctioned this October might just take the cake when it comes to surprises.
Dubbed ‘The Junkyard: The Rudi Klein Collection’ by auction house RM Sotheby’s, this secretive set of cars includes some of the rarest cars ever made, many of which where presumed to be lost.
The catch? Most of these cars find themselves in a state of disrepair after sitting in the scorching California sun for decades in this barbed wire-fenced yard.
This 500K ‘Caracciola’ Special Coupe was presumed to be lost (Image: Robin Adams for RM Sotheby’s)
The flagship among them is a 1955 300 SL ‘Alloy’ Gullwing considered to be the rarest Mercedes-Benz ever made. Another Merc among the listings, a 1935 500K ‘Caracciola’ Special Coupe, was another car thought to be gone for good.
Also found among the listings is a 1939 Horch 855 Special Roadster presumed to be the only one remaining. Another one-of-a-kind is the only factory-made convertible Iso Grifo.
Plenty of Porsches can be found amongst these decaying classics (Image: Robin Adams for RM Sotheby’s)
Plenty of Porsches will be up for grabs, most notably an ultra-low-mileage 1961 Porsche 356 B 1600 ‘Twin-Grille’ Roadster by d’Ieteren. Several Lamborghini Miuras can also be spotted in the photos.
For now, we’ve only got a short list of teasers and the photos to go off, but the full list of vehicles will be announced in September before crossing the auction block the following month.
A few Lamborghini Miuras can be found amongst the listings (Image: Robin Adams for RM Sotheby’s)
The collection was accrued by Rudi Klein, a German immigrant to the US during the 1950s. Although initially working as a butcher, he founded a scrapyard business in 1967 called Porche Foreign Auto – the misspelling being deliberate after the threat of a lawsuit.
Specialising in parting out limited-run cars that had been crashed and sold for scrap, Klein specialised in providing hard-to-find parts at top-dollar prices. This is what afforded him to purchase the likes of the 500K ‘Caracciola’ after it won its class at Pebble Beach Concours in 1978.
The 500K ‘Caracciola’ was kept tucked away by Klein since 1980 (Image: Kegun Morkin for RM Sotheby’s)
