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Fewer cars assimilate better in a (literal) sea of eight-figure yachts and apartments than the winged wonder itself, the 300SL Gullwing. Anyone in Monaco can buy an Aventador, 812 Superfast, or Veyron, ride around the entire time in first gear, and call themselves a connoisseur of fine automobiles. The exact opposite of that is true in those cases, and a very quick remedy of that is today’s car, a 1956 300SL Gullwing in Strawberry Red Metallic. This is a car with style and taste, although the exhaust doesn’t backfire and shoot flames when driving past various casinos. Also, it is extremely expensive to purchase, maintain, repair, insure, and really hard to get in and out of wearing anything other than athletic clothes. Still, it is worth all those sacrifices and more.
Here is something you don’t see everyday. This is the mighty 1956 Mercedes-Benz Unimog 401. Believe it or not, this is actually the third generation of the Unimog, as the Unimog 2010 ran from 1951 to 1953, and the original Unimog 70200 ran from 1949 to 1951. Powerful speed demons these were not. The 401 we are looking at today utilized the diesel OM 636 VI car engine that was factory rated at 25 horsepower and 75 ft-lb of torque. It had a manual gearbox with six forward gears and two reverse – for all those times you are pulling from both direction. This example up for sale in Belgium actually underwent a restoration and is probably one of the nicest example out there. The price? Not as crazy as you would expect.
Update 10/1/18: Sold for $5,456. That’s an expensive lump of rust!
Here is something I don’t normally see. This is a 1956 Mercedes-Benz L319 Truck up for bid in California of all places. As you can see, it is very old and very rusty. More on that later. The story with the L319 trucks and vans are they were a light commercial vehicle that were larger than a standard delivery van, but smaller than a conventional light truck of the time. The L319 is essentially the grandfather of the now very common Mercedes-Benz Sprinter that is still the go-to van for a number of industries. This 1956 in Chico, California has pretty much reached the end of its life span, but don’t put it past some trendy business to buy it and put flowers in the bed to take cutesy Instagram photos with.
Last week we looked at a variety of vintage, air-cooled Volkswagens, with one very important model conspicuously missing from the lineup: the Beetle. We’ll make up for lost time this Monday with this 1956 Oval Window Beetle for sale in Michigan. This brightly colored example is sporting a twin carbureted 1800 cc engine and a 12 volt electric system conversion, sitting on chrome wheels with Porsche style hubcaps. With some period correct details, this People’s Car pulls off a very rich look with a price to match.
Yesterday, Carter featured one of Mercedes-Benz’s pre-war greats, the 540K Cabriolet A. Offered in coupe, sedan and cabriolet forms, this was the ultimate status symbol of 1930s Germany. It was fairly amazing, given the devastation of World War II, that German industry was able to get back on its feet so quickly and produce a vehicle like we see here, the 300Sc. While a lot of the technology that was put into this car drew on pre war technology, this was truly a successor to the magnificent and ornate 540Ks of two decades earlier. A bit baroque in appearance for the 1950s, this model would lend its fuel-injected engine into that Mercedes-Benz icon, the 300SL Gullwing. This example for sale in California is one of less than 100 produced, restored to concours condition.
