Description
Offered for sale is an absolutely gorgeous, extremely original and honest, mechanically excellent and completely rust-free 1971 Mercedes-Benz 280SE 3.5 Coupe finished in luxuriant, factory correct Sand Beige Metallic (MB Color Code DB 467) over its original black leather interior and showing only 79k miles, believed to be original and correct. We purchased the car from its third owner, a gentleman from Oregon who kept the car at his vacation home in Palm Springs, CA. The car was in excellent cosmetic condition when he purchased it in 1998, but, of the slightly anal type, he set about thoroughly going through the car mechanically, rebuilding the engine (at 68k miles), exhaustively maintaining the car and addressing any and every issue he could find throughout his ownership. Fifteen years and nearly $22,000 in receipts later, the car runs as well as any W111 3.5 we’ve ever had the pleasure of driving.
Perpetually elegant while remaining undeniably masculine, the W111 “Heckflosse” (fintail) coupes are certainly one of the most beautiful and well-balanced cars Mercedes ever produced, epitomizing the mixture of graceful design lines and over-engineered, hand-built solidity for which the marque was and is renowned. Cloaked in subtly complex and wonderfully era specific Sand Beige Metallic, the car’s body is free of any evidence of accidents or bondo and is entirely straight with excellent, consistent gaps and panel fits. An extremely high quality repaint in the original color, the finish remains superb, deep and lustrous and free of any significant imperfections. The glass is all in excellent original condition and the chrome and rubber are virtually flawless, as are the original, color matched hubs, wrapped in white-wall tires with plenty of remaining tread.
The car’s interior is equally clean and entirely original, with the exception of the dash wood that runs across the bottom of the windshield, which has been refinished. The seats show a requisite and charming amount of patina, the carpets are in fantastic original condition, the headliner and interior panels are excellent and the rest of the original wood trim is gorgeous as well. A testament to the previous owner’s zealous maintenance, everything works – including, but not limited to all four power windows, original Becker radio (with power antenna), heat/defrost controls, all gauges and the Behr Air Conditioning unit, which has been converted to R12 and blows cold.
The car’s undercarriage is entirely original, rust-free and solid, as are the wheel wells, jack points, trunk and trunk wells. The engine compartment is clean and well-sorted, housing the powerful V8. Starting easily without any smoke or hesitation, idling consistently and pulling strongly and smoothly through each of the gears, the engine has excellent, even compression. The car’s road manners are also fantastic, driving and braking straight, handling cleanly and free of any abnormal shudders or vibrations. Whether tooling through town on a weekend cruise or bombing down the highway at 80+ MPH, the car is an absolute joy to drive – modern enough to be comfortably enjoyed as a daily driver (although we feel the car’s too nice for that fate), but also visceral enough to provide that great vintage ride quality. Whether its next owner will be a weekend enthusiast or a serious collector, this 3.5 coupe is undoubtedly going to provide another 42 years of “pride of ownership” for it’s next owner.
Considering their rarity and the astronomical prices that their cabriolet siblings are fetching, 3.5 Coupes have long been undervalued in most classic car enthusiasts’ minds. That’s not always going to be the case, so it’s our opinion that they represent excellent investment upside while providing a wonderfully drivable ownership experience. Finding clean and original 3.5 coupes is hard enough as it is, but finding a mechanically excellent, rust-free, very original and and honest example such as this is truly a rare occurrence.
