Among the cars I am helping to sell out of the large car and truck collection in Georgia is a small batch of Mercedes-Benz W108 parts cars. From what I can tell, there are more collectors of this era of Mercedes in Europe than there are in the U.S., and that’s not a phenomenon limited to the Benzes: the Datsun Z-cars, too, have a big following overseas. The seller seems to hint that this 1971 Mercedes-Benz 300SEL might head back to the motherland, and it’s listed here on eBay with a $5K opening bid.

The tricky aspect of pricing these cars is that really good ones command a high price, while mediocre ones don’t reach much of a middle ground – they’re just cheap. The main gamechanges tend to be V8 versus inline six and whether the air suspension is still working. The seller says the air suspension is still present in this example, but doesn’t allude to whether it’s working.

Shockingly, I would say that parts-car Mercedes I posted have better interiors than this one. Blame it on use, I guess, as this car may have seen more regular daily activity than the ones I’m trying to sell. The seats will need to be reupholstered at some point, but incredibly, the dash doesn’t appear to be cracked. Also worth noting this is a column shift example versus the floor shifter.

The eight-cylinder Mercedes of this era provided impressive performance for the time in which they were made. V8 cars especially, and they quickly became the vehicle of choice for the rich and famous. This example will fire up and run briefly, but the seller says more work is needed, as the fuel system needs to be cleaned out before it can be run at length. Think this will stay stateside or head to Europe?