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"After getting the daughter accepted for school in the US, we cancelledour morning flight from Tallinn and immediately began the several-dayprocess of collecting and packing the parts that the owner for the past17 years had fastidiously dismantled and dispersed among six differentbarns. He had been well aware that some factions of the Russian mafiahad learned of the valuable piece being stored somewhere in Estoniaand dismantling and dispersal seemed to best way to protect the carfrom theft and/or total destruction at the hands of others."We chartered two planes to come from Helsinki, Finland, and on afoggy night we pulled together a convoy of vehicles, loaded them withall the 540K's bits, and set off for the airport. We regarded everybody asa potential threat. We believed the police were probably corrupt. Mostof the parts were loaded onto an open 18-wheel flat-bed trailer truck,most of the parts in boxes, the body hidden under a tarp. Our other twovehicles were a British postal van, and a Fiat 500... Then in the foggynight we had breakdowns on the way. Finally we arrived within sightof the airfield, which was a real one-horse affair with just one lightbulbshowing. We sent a scout ahead while we parked nearby. He cameback to say it was OK, so we drove through the gate. It was pitch blackas well as foggy when a searchlight came on directly overhead and weabsolutely froze. But the light just went out. So we crept forward foranother minute or so until a building loomed up out of the gloom and ouraircraft were standing there – a Twin Otter and a Guppy freighter."Just as we stopped about a dozen guys appeared. We thought wewere toast. The aircraft had com ahead of schedule with only a sixhourpermit window. They had only an hour left so we had to load upimmediately, and these guys had actually offered to help. We had all theCustoms papers stamped, but our fear had been interference from themuch-discussed mafia. The freighter was way over-loaded. We'd just'guess-timated' the weight and with all that armour plate I'm sure we gotit wrong. It was one huge relief just to get airborne, but an even biggerone when we finally touched down, un-intercepted, in Helsinki, Finland."We then transferred all the parts into a Finnair Boeing 747 Combi,which was quite a performance on its own, and after two hours' sleepwatched the car body being loaded into the Combi's side door. Andthen we were off, across the Atlantic, and home into JFK, New York. Weshipped the bits on to Connecticut, where they have all been stored forthe twenty-on-and-a-half years since – and that's it...".The Estonian owner's daughter took her place in the exclusive Americanboarding school that Autumn. Her parents visited to see her there. Shedid well and graduated successfully in 1995 – this Mercedes-BenzAktion P, conceived amidst infamy, had provided first-rate education anda brighter future.Today this is an immensely rare Mercedes-Benz, and one with anextraordinary story. It offers a new owner the potential of restorationto its original 540K Cabriolet B configuration, with its 1942-43 AktionP armoured bodywork otherwise restored or displayed – or totalpreservation or restoration as existing, as only the world's third (or thirdknown, surviving, Aktion P 540K. Like its vendor, we are in wondermentat the car's survival. Born first into glory with VolkswagenwerkeAG's associated birth, ripped apart for wartime armour-plating;somehow miraculously saved from destruction under the Red Army'sbombardment of the Reichskanzellerei Motor Pool; survived postwaruse by Soviet generals; threatened yet again in Estonia yet thankfully,ingeniously, saved for posterity.Above all, here is a wartime period example of the much-coveted andrenowned Mercedes-Benz 540K model, preserved as a variant ofperiod historic significance, and one – above all - whose long historyincludes a very positive and happy accompaniment. We recommendthe closest consideration.Should the vehicle remain in the EU, local import taxes of 5% will beapplied to the hammer price.£400,000 - 700,000€490,000 - 860,000306 | Goodwood festival of speed