Warning!
We have 15 years of archives. Links older than a year may have been updated to point to similar cars available to bid on eBay.
This site contains Ebay partner affiliate links, which may earn us a commission at no additional cost to you.
In the early 1980s, both BMW and Mercedes-Benz offered big coupes based upon sedan brethren. But to get the performance that matched their looks, before 1985-1986 you needed to look towards the “Grey Market” to get the hotter original specification motors. For the BMW 6-series, that meant the 635CSi jumped from 182 horsepower to 218, with 10 lb.ft more torque, too. But the Mercedes-Benz SEC was the big jump in power, with 27 horsepower more than the 380SEC but a massive 67 lb.ft of torque added. Coupled with lower weight, better headlights and slimmer bumpers, today these Euro editions are still quite popular and highly sought. Today I have two to face off; are either worth the high asking price for the ticket of admission?
By the time the 1990s dawned, the tap on gray market imports to the US had been closed off. However, a few cars still trickled in, especially via our neighbors to the north, Canada. This 1991 Mercedes-Benz 500SEC for sale in New Brunswick is a one family car, having been shipped from Germany to Canada. It looks to have led a pampered life, with under 40,000 miles on the clock.
After posting what I considered to be an over priced 911 yesterday, I thought I’d go the opposite direction and post a vehicle that I believe is not only fairly priced but may even be, dare I say it, a deal. To be perfectly honest I’ve been sitting on this listing for some time because I had hoped to have sold my S4 Avant and shot out to Palm Springs to take ownership of this thing, pending an inspection and test drive of course. It is a vastly different vehicle than the S4 but that’s kind of the point of me selling the car, I’m just ready for something different. A two door luxury coupe from the 80’s is about as different as I care to get with my next vehicle and man, what a candidate this car is.
The brown over tan interior oozes California country club cool, I like to think that the majority of the miles on this car are from making trips between Torrey Pines and PGA West. Comfortable and relaxing are perhaps the two most appropriate adjectives to associate with this car as the 5.0L V8 only cranked out 184hp. That’s not a whole lot for a 3,549lb car but this wasn’t a machine built for flat out speed or impressive lap times. This car is all about enjoying the ride, not getting to the destination in the shortest amount of time possible. If you’re looking for a luxury coupe that is as happy chasing apexes as it is eating up long stretches of highway then you’ll want to look for an E24. It’s hard for me to pick a favorite between the two legendary 80’s two doors because I haven’t an allegiance to either brand. I tend to like more of BMW’s cars overall but sometimes I want that little bit of extra luxury that I’ve always felt a Mercedes Benz offers. While the 635CSI remains on my shortlist of vehicles I’d want to own at some point, surprisingly the W126 500 SEC currently sits above it.
The words “authentic” and “original” become quite contested when it comes to 1980s AMG products. That’s mostly because, in truly un-Germanic fashion, most of the records of the early AMG cars were lost in the move from an independent company to incorporation in the Daimler-Benz Goliath. That’s really unfortunate, because it opens the opportunity for interpretation; without documentation, how is one supposed to truly show that their car is an original modified version? There are also questions about what level of modification makes a “authentic” AMG; because, technically, you could buy a steering wheel, wheels and aerobits from an authorized dealer in the 1980s and be able to claim it’s an original car. But the big money tends to be reserved for the cars that were fully modified with upgraded engines, suspension, interior and exterior upgrades. We’ve seen a few of these variously modified SECs cross these pages, and today we get to look at another. This one straddles the middle ground of mods; a steering wheel, reportedly correct “Penta” wheels, and aerodynamic bits adorn this European market 500SEC, but the car also has the correct AMG suspension as well. With lower miles, will this 1980s spectacular dipped white example set the market ablaze?
The eighties would be an end of an era for people wanting to privately import their own example of a vehicle not officially offered for US sale. Mounting legislation would make it impossible to import a vehicle under 25 years of age unless it met federal safety and emissions standards or if it was granted an exception under show and display status. Truth be told, the number of folks willing to go to the expense and trouble of private vehicle importation is rather small, but now the door was closed to bringing over cars such as this 1986 Mercedes-Benz 500SEC, with its higher output V8 and slimmer bumpers that connoisseurs of the marque love. The C126 coupe was a masterfully graceful design, sandwiched between the somewhat awkwardly proportioned C107 SLC coupe and the large and in charge C140 coupe.
