Low mileage battleship 2: ’78 Mercedes-Benz 450SEL
This older Mercedes-Benz sedan is not a classic yet it has a place in the world. At least to us it does. If it was a spent car with 200,000 miles, rust and a beat interior then it should become a donor car so that others may live. Not today’s 450SEL. It belonged to the seller’s Mother and she was the original owner. Mom stopped driving it 18 years ago with 62,000 miles therefore the seller had to put a considerable amount of money in to get it roadworthy again. The question is this. Is it “sellable” (good for a road test) roadworthy or really “drive it home to California” roadworthy? If it turns out to be a real driver, then it is a very nice car in what appears to be better than average condition. The work performed means it should start and stop pretty well. What we don’t know is does the A/C work, power windows, sunroof and god knows what else. They can be really expensive to get right. But we still like it and would give it a chance. The asking price is $8,500. Click here for the listing.
For 8500 BIN it shouldn’t matter if it is a US version or not. It has at least been nationalized with the big ugly bumpers. I’m guessing the velour is an option, and if I had 8500 dollars I would move the wife’s car out of the garage into the rain….
Need a shot of the emissions label under the hood on the core support and the VIN plate in the driver’s jam to see if this is a U.S. car. What is suspect is the velour interior which to my knowledge was only a European Market feature. Possibly it was special ordered on a U.S. market car. If not one has to ask how many km were on the odo before the cluster was changed out to the U.S. spec version seen in the photos……
The body looks beautiful so maybe it is a U.S. car but one needs to get some more history…