Automakers had few design restraints in the early years of Formula One, long before stringent regulations turned the cars into thinly veiled copies of each other. Mercedes-Benz took that opportunity in the mid-1950s to create the W 196 R, an open-seat race car that could wear streamlined bodywork. It was called the Stromlinienwagen, and RM Sotheby’s is selling one with an incredible pedigree.
