All Entries Tagged With: "c107"
1973 Mercedes 450SLC For Sale + Chat With Seller
by Gunnar Heinrich ::: img via eBay ::: 1973 Mercedes-Benz 450SLC for sale
“NOTHING’S perfect,” David Wayne, eBay seller for nearly five years tells me on the phone. “My dog’s not perfect, my house isn’t perfect, but compared to most used cars, it’s damn near perfect.”
Mr. Wayne, a Texan with a quarter-century of selling cars under his belt – among other dealers, he was a fleet manager at Park City Ford in Dallas – is looking to sell a mint-looking 1973 Mercedes-Benz 450SLC with 170K+ miles on the clock.
Like any good car salesman, he’s as adamant about his offer as anything and his clients (the SLC’s third and longest owners) are said to have chased every detail.
Fortunately, he says he’s got 20 years of receipts to back his story.
“They have put a ton of money into this car over time. Whatever it needed, they gave it. They were going to have the best running SLC around.”
And good running SLCs seem hard to come by these days. This 450, one of fewer and fewer visually prime specimens of the C107 generation S-Class coupés, received a fresh paint job in the early 2000s. According to Mr. Wayne, the owners spent $16,000.
“No expense was spared on this car. I’ve got receipts [totaling] over $50,000.”
He lists what works: the AC blows cold (choice), the body’s without rust, the engine leaks no oil and is otherwise without sin (aside from needing a good detail), and the transmission shifts as it should.
“The seats are firm and nice,” he advises.
The odometer has been replaced. This is the second which shows more than 70K miles. The original stopped at around 100K – a service which was also documented.
The wire-wheels, Euro-spec headlamps, and thin, pre-US-five-mph-reg. bumpers suggest a gray-market Benz, but Mr. Wayne says otherwise.
“I think this was the first year they brought the 450SLC to the US. It was the most expensive car you could buy from Mercedes,” he says.
A quick fact check proves that this is mostly true. The 350SLC was first introduced to the US in 1972, the 450SLC followed in ‘73 and every SLC was imported with specially made sealed-beam units that were installed on all North American market R107 and C107 Benzes up until the R107 series discontinuation in 1989.
That means that one of this SLC’s three owners likely swapped out for the more powerful Euro halogens.
Mr. Wayne is looking to sell the 450SLC for $11,995. It’s the second time he’s listed it on eBay and he says he’ll ship anywhere.
“I’ve got another [R107] SL I’m going to sell,” he says, “but I’ve got to sell this one first.”
Englisch Bitte! Mercedes-Benz C107 SLC Fascination Video
- Mercedes-Benz C107 Generation: 350SLC, 450SLC, 500SLC
- SLCs were the S-Class coupe based on the R107 SL
- Fascination Videos now dubbed in English
By Gunnar Heinrich | IMG via YouTube
PERSONALLY, I can’t stand the Mercedes-Benz “Fascination” videos.
They’re a long series of shorts which dryly recycle company archive footage and cover it all with dry narrative flakes that served up in a piece so passionless, you’d get more sauce from a DMV training video.
Originally, the series was dubbed in German. Now they’ve been re-posted in English.
Danke!
But back to why they’re crap.
Probably more irksome than watching brown cars through a brown lens is the modern synching of royalty-free “period music”. What we’re left with in artistic and entertainment terms is a true snooze fest.
That said, like an encyclopaedia, a thesaurus, or the AP, they’re there for good reason.
Where else could we watch to our heart’s content recent classic Benzes on parade, in development, in crash testing, or in their – ahem- period settings?
Type “450SLC video” into a YouTube search and the first five postings are likely to be some jackals lighting up a tired, pimped out example in a parking lot somewhere in South Dakota or Hungary.
These are grand cars! Modern classics which need tender love and care. The C107 SLC, for instance, was a rally car champ in its day as well as being a svelte 2+2 luxury coupe of the first order.
I guess if we had to make a choice between senseless hoonage and corporate chalk, we’ll take the corporate chalk for its reverence, any day.
All the better now that it’s in English.
