A 1930 Mercedes Benz 710 SSK

In 2017, Frans van Haren drove this car on the Pebble Beach Motoring Classic from Kirkland, WA to Monterey. Although it was not in the Concours, van Haren was still allowed to drive his extremely rare and unrestored classic on the 9-day drive with other Pebble Beach Concours participants. van Haren is an avid pre-war Mercedes collector and has many other rare cars from this period.

While I don’t know much about this car, van Haren is part of an interesting story on another Mercedes he owned – if only for awhile.

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In 2011, Frans had purchased a 1935 Mercedes Benz 500K Roadster at the Monterey RM Sotheby auction for $3.76 million. Only 29 of those cars were built. A few months after that, he choose to exhibit the car at the Techno Classica show in Essen, Germany whereupon it was promptly seized by the local polizei.

After several years of claims, the German courts ruled the car belonged to the Prym family of Stolberg since it had apparently been stolen from German Industrialist Hans Prym’s estate by an American soldier immediately after the war. Prym was being held by Allied authorities at the time, even though he was never convicted of any crime. The car disappeared until 1970 when it resurfaced in the U.S. after being sold.

Even though the car was gone for so many years, its return to Germany sparked the Prym’s into action, undeterred by a 30-year statute of limitations they claimed did not apply since the car had been removed from die Mutterland. It seems a flimsy argument at best, but the courts eventually sided with them. After winning in 2016, the Prym’s immediately sold the car at auction for $5.9 million – but it wasn’t about the money….

I have no idea if or how Frans got his $3.76 million back. If I had to guess, some sort of restitution deal was worked out with RM Sotheby. And what about the guy who put the car up for auction? Needless-to-say, no one would want to be part of that nightmare.

Back to the SSK at left, which stands for “Super Sport Kurtz,” or short. It was the last car designed for Mercedes by Ferdinand Porsche. Boasting a supercharged, overhead cam, 7-liter straight-6, it produced up to 300 HP and 500 ft/lb of torque reaching a top speed of 120 MPH. Only four or five completely original cars remain, as many were wrecked and cannibalized for rebuilding.

During the drive from Seattle to Pebble Beach, Frans began displaying an American flag on his car as a show of respect for the outpouring of attention and stories the cars sparked from people along the way.