After a checkered career that began with ferrying around the most evil man in history, a 1939 armoured Mercedes-Benz limousine is looking for a new owner.

The 770K Grosser Offener Tourenwagen (large convertible touring car) was delivered to German dictator Adolf Hitler just weeks before he plunged the planet into its most devastating conflict.

Captured by U.S. forces after the end of the Second World War, it is now set to be auctioned on Jan. 18 by Arizona-based Worldwide Auctioneers.

“We are acutely aware of the responsibility attached to presenting such an impactful piece of history for public sale,” auctioneer Rod Egan said in a statement.

The auction house has called the limousine “the most historically significant automobile ever offered for public sale.” Although Worldwide Auctioneers did not provide an estimated sale price, it’s entirely likely the car could end up ranking as one of history’s most expensive used cars.

The heavily armoured limousine was a “Fuhrer-car”; part of a fleet used to ferry around Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.

Most notably, it was the car that carried Hitler in a Berlin victory parade celebrating the defeat of France. That parade, incidentally, was on June 6, 1940, exactly four years before allied forces stormed the beaches of Normandy to roll back the German occupation.

According to historical research provided by Worldwide Auctioneers, the car ignominiously ended its Nazi career as a getaway car.

In the closing weeks of the Second World War, a carload of SS officers were reportedly using the limousine to flee the Allied advance when they were ambushed and killed by partisans near the Belgian border. The car was then abandoned in a canal.

After it was recovered by local civilians, it was briefly used by occupying U.S. forces as part of a motor pool in France. A Belgian businessman then took possession and used it as his personal vehicle, until local authorities reportedly banned the driving of such an explicit reminder of their former German occupiers.

The car was shipped to the United States by Tom Austin, an exporter who acquired the vehicle in trade for $1,800 in tobacco. From 1949 to 1976 the car was owned by a Veterans of Foreign Wars branch in Tennessee, whose members used it to carry the mothers of fallen soldiers in local parades.

Sales of Nazi memorabilia can be controversial due to fears that they may be acquired by neo-Nazis as objects of veneration.

In 2000, for instance, the Canadian War Museum considered auctioning off its own former Nazi staff car to raise funds for a new location. After a torrent of complaints, the museum backtracked.

We can't control who buys it. This car would be such a powerful icon for a neo-Nazi or extreme group

“We can’t control who buys it. This car would be such a powerful icon for a neo-Nazi or extreme group,” then-museum director Jack Granatstein told Canadian Press at the time.

This particular car, in fact, has already been in the hands of an owner with a suspicious fondness for the Third Reich.

Between 1983 and 2004 the car was owned by Las Vegas casino magnate Ralph Engelstad, who kept it on display at the Imperial Palace Auto Collection.

In 1989, Engelstad was fined $1.5 million by Nevada gaming authorities for sullying the image of Las Vegas through his persistent love of Nazi imagery. The casino owner reportedly maintained a private room packed with Nazi memorabilia and had once held a Nazi-themed staff party on Hitler’s birthday.

Worldwide Auctioneers has been careful to note that their sale is in no way intended to celebrate or glorify Nazi Germany.

“The very survival and continued existence of this motorcar today serves to remind humankind of the final and inevitable Allied victory over the evil that Hitler and his Nazi party represented,” reads their description of the car. All told, the auction house’s write-up on the car includes the word “evil” six times.

“It did not choose its user or its use,” the write-up adds.

In addition, Worldwide Auctioneers has announced that 10 per cent of the sale price will be donated to an unspecified Holocaust education charity.

Despite its monstrous provenance, the car is indeed a marvel of automotive engineering. Indeed, Nazi Germany’s aptitude for all things mechanical is part of what made the Second World War particularly long and deadly.

Crafted largely by hand, the car is one of only 88 were made — most of which did not survive the Second World War’s final months. Despite its bulletproof opulence, the Grosser was built to handle speeds of 180 km/h.

Unlike other wartime German staff cars that have been falsely advertised as “Hitler’s car” throughout the years, there is ample documentation to trace this vehicle directly to the Fuhrer’s personal usage.

It did not choose its user or its use

Ironically, the direct linkage to Hitler was not even known until after the car had been in the United States for several decades.

At the time of its use by the Veterans of Foreign Wars, for instance, it was known simply as a staff car of the “German secret police.” Other owners believed it may have been used by top Nazi Heinrich Himmler, the leading architect of the Holocaust.

The truth behind the car is owed largely to the archival research of a Canadian, Ludwig Kosche, who served as a librarian for the Canadian War Museum in the 1970s.

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