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Prince of Monaco’s 1983 Mercedes 500SEC with 5000 miles

This is what has to be one of the lowest mile, best maintained W126 left in the world.

Perhaps economic hard times are hitting the royalty of the tiny principality, doubtful, but the Prince is selling off a number of cars from his deceased father’s royal collection. The no reserve auction set to take place on July 26 include this beautiful Mercedes 500 SEC.

More and more we see commentary in print and online about the W126 Benzs recognizing them as one of the greatest modern German icons. A recent Jalopnik article had a wonderful line about the W126 that really sums up these cars, “Just stick an old S-class sedan or SEC coupe in a Benz showroom today, and it will look like the proudest car there.” Well said indeed.

The Prince’s 500SEC with AMG accessories doesn’t represent the pinnacle of the W126 in terms of performance or rarity, but the famous ownership and ridiculously low mileage more than make up for that.

This car just looks perfect, the deep dark blue color covers the entire car. The paint has been extended with the standard AMG treatment to cover all the chrome, the grille, the wheels, etc. An AMG steering wheel is inside and an uninstalled set of expensive Recaro buckets is included with the car.

The Prince apparently bought the car new from the Monaco Mercedes dealership and put the limited miles on the car himself.

The sales estimate on the car is listed between $20,000 and $30,000. For the money one can expect a driving experience as if the car was new and certainly, if driven, 100s of thousands of miles of drivability on the reliable V8. The car comes with the original manuals and documentation.

Quite a unique opportunity for this special one owner car.

Be sure to check out the rest of the auction catalog, which includes a nice looking Porsche 928S in German flag colors.

Prince Rainier’s 500SEC AMG

~Evan

6 Comments

  1. brian
    brian July 2, 2012

    nice find Evan, this car is amazing!

  2. Larry
    Larry July 2, 2012

    Unfortunately, the combination of “famous ownership and ridiculously low mileage” that will boost this car’s value at auction will also minimize the likelihood of it getting driven regularly going forward.

    While it’s absolutely beautiful, as Evan noted, the “500SEC with AMG accessories doesn’t represent the pinnacle of the W126 in terms of performance or rarity,” so maybe the fact that it’s probably going to sit in a collection somewhere isn’t that big a loss?

  3. Chuck
    Chuck July 2, 2012

    What a gorgeous car. Love the blacked-out look. I could see it going for way more than $30K, however.

  4. David
    David August 3, 2012

    This puppy sold for 117,609 euros (over $145k!!!) The estimate was 15k – 25k euros. The 928 sold for 40,307 euros ($49,887).

  5. Evan
    Evan August 4, 2012

    When I saw the result for that SEC I was just stunned. This must be the most expensive 500SEC ever. It is so much of an outlier in terms of the market that I can’t really imagine this price will change values of the W126 Mercs much, but we do know that prices on excellent examples does continue to rise. Perhaps there were two bidders with personal history with this car or maybe there is something hidden in the trunk.Regardless it remains very nice car.

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