| My spring cleaning spree has now come to a close. For sale here is a 1965 300SE coupe with a RARE 4 SPEED MANUAL TRANSMISSION. For those of you who are unfamiliar, the 300SE was the top of the Mercedes line in '65, excluding the 600 series limos. It was a very expensive handmade car, and has a timeless and beautiful design. It has a killer front end, with the huge traditional Mercedes grille and the very cool vestigial fins on the rear deck. These usually come with a somewhat clunky auto tranny, but this one has a 4 speed manual. It also has air conditioning. Here's the good news: the engine, transmission, brakes, etc. all work. Even the radio works, although the tuner needs to be fixed. I drove this car quite a bit, and it was really an excellent runner. Quite fast, especially for its age and era, and infinitely more fun with the manual transmission. It really drives like a modern car, and is extremely cool and unusual. You just never see a 300 coupe tooling around. Now for the bad news: this fellow has the infamous Mercedes air suspension that was used during this era. These suspensions are prone to finicky behavior. I replaced all four air bags in this car several years ago, and had the leveling system fixed as well. Unfortunately, in the past couple of months, the old fellow is back down on his haunches, as shown in the photos. In other words, the rear air bags are not filling for some reason, and as a result, the car looks like it has a broken axle, which it does not. Frankly, I'm tired of messing with the air suspension. I could just bring it in and have it replaced with coil springs, or I could have the air bags replaced or whatever, but truth be told, I just don't want to mess with it anymore, even though it means that I'm going to lose quite a bit of money on this transaction. So here's the deal. I have a very small reserve on this sale--much less than half of what I have into the car, which has been aptly nicknamed "the Color of Money." I hope that somebody will take the time to work on this rare car and get it going again. I do not think that it needs much more mechanical work than what it would take to fix the suspension. It does have what appears to be its original paint. As you can see, the top (dark green) part of the car has faded/oxidized paint. The lighter paint is much better, but still a bit weathered. There is some surface rust on the trunk lid, which I've highlighted in the photos. The chrome is generally very good, and there's lots of it. The interior is pretty decent, especially for the age of the car. Again, I believe that it's original. It is leather. The leather is cracking on the front seats, and there are some splits, particularly on the passenger side. The headliner is nearly perfect. The carpet is ok. The wood on the dash has some cracks and weathering, but again, this appears to be an original, untouched car, and I've been happily driving it with its natural patina, preferring that to a restoration that undoes all that nature has gently given to this car. I know this sounds like a canned, fakey eBay sales comment, but I bought this car from my Mercedes mechanic. Seriously. It was his father's car, and he had it stored in the back. It apparently was originally delivered in Holland, hence the speedometer reading in KPH. I do not know how many miles are on this car. Could be ten zillion, but given its overall shape for its age, I don't think the miles are too terribly high. So that's the story. I know that the thing looks terribly ill in the pictures, but it really is a nice car overall. Please note that I will be in and out of town for most of the summer, so please be flexible with me on delivery. I won't ship this car, but I'll be happy to meet you or your shipper at my warehouse in NE Denver, convenient to I-70 and I-25. PLEASE ALSO NOTE THAT BECAUSE THE REAR SUSPENSION IS OUT, IT SITS VERY LOW AND THAT MIGHT COMPLICATE MOVING AND SHIPPING IT. I won't be able to help you with that issue; you'll have to arrange to have it shipped or moved as is. Thanks. |
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