Are you trying to kick a gambling addiction? Do you find yourself spending too much money eating out rather than preparing meals at home? Well, I have the ultimate solution for ensuring you’ll never again have any expendable income to consider wasting foolishly. It’s a 1979 Mercedes-Benz 450SEL with the big 6.9L V8 engine and the auction here on eBay is a no-reserve listing with bidding only at $710. Now, the seller admits the engine overheated and he’s not sure of the level of damage to the internals, but the interior is fairly mint and the chassis has under 100K miles. Amazingly, the air suspension has been fixed and is currently operational, a surprising find in any of these old S-Class Mercedes. The 6.9 engine is a bruiser, and wholly deserves being resuscitated assuming any damage stemming from overheating isn’t too far-reaching. Regardless, once you start funneling money into a worthy project like this, any other drains on your finances will soon disappear!
That ain’t no 1979 car! That body style wasn’t introduced until the 1980’s. Nor is it a 6.9 which was produced from 1977 to 1979.
Nope, it’s a W116 car, built from 1973-1979-80 depending on market. It may or may not be an M100 (6.9), but the seller has little reason to lie about it. The bumpers are the giveaway on these cars, but those have been covered by a body kit, so it’s hard to say
Oops! It is indeed a ’79 6.9! I humbly retract my earlier posting!
I guess this particular car looks like the next generation SEL because of the way that the bumpers have been modified.
So, in the words of Emily Litella of SNL (Look it up), “Never mind!”
Beware the Bosch D-Jetronic (dual distributor points) fuel injection.
i see more then the current bid in parts, i think. email the seller for the video if your interested. interesting find.
I have a friend who recently found a similar car sitting unused. It’s been impecably maintained and looks and runs amazing. She bought it cheap and was planning on flipping it but she scrapped a door at the gas station. Now she’s willing to sell it for $1500. And no, wifey won’t let me have another Mercedes.
If it wasn’t so damn far away, I’d buy in a heartbeat…helluva road cruiser….100 mph all day….
Just for those that have not experienced it yet:
These cars are money pits.
Very beautiful, nice riding and awesome rocket-ship type of cars, but money pits never the less.
This car has hydraulic suspension (as seller describes) and not air suspension as Jeff writes.
WHICH only means it’s that much more expensive.
All ‘work’ quoted was done three years ago and much of it probably needs to be redone.
Over heated without details means it could get expensive too.
Bumpers are for some odd reason from a w126 (the follow up model) and don’t really belong unless your taste is , let’s say questionable. And along with that you start to doubt everything theta was entertained by the previous owner(s).
The proper Us bumpers for this model aren’t cheap either, but the 450SEL bumpers would work if you want to be thrifty….
but that’s what it’s all about (and what it always was all about) with 6.9s :
Throw lots and lots of monaay at it, and the car will be happy and you shouldn’t care.
Or do like most other people, try to do it on the cheap. Fail and give up after awhile….
Just one more thing: why isn’t there a single shot of the front of the car.
I know there is a bogus claim on Lorinser parts, but I suspect collision damage or ??
Mmmmm yes. A fright pig sitting in a dirt yard with broken Vanagons.
It is clean, though. How did one of these with such low miles get into questionable hands? Rubbermaid bumpers, overheating the engine, etc.