Enthusiasts Blogging Our Favorite Classifieds
It seems like once a year I run across a rather interesting hearse that makes you ask “What do you even do with it now?” An honest question given they only serve one person, but today I have another hearse that seems to go beyond the normal setup and deep into the excess. Let’s check it out.
Some days you just don’t know what you are going to stumble across. This is one of those days. What we are looking at is a 1994 Mercedes-Benz S320 that has been converted to a hearse. Now believe it or not, this is not the first time I’ve looked at an S-Class hearse, as there was a 560SEL I checked out way back in 2018. That one was setup for Japanese Buddhists, while this W140 seems to be more of a traditional hearse without the scaled down Temple constructed on it. However, judging by the decor and stickers on the car, this most certainly also came from Japan where it saw some use. Cool! But what would you even do with it?
Hey there. This is something different. What we have today in a 1994 Mercedes-Benz SL280 up for sale in the heart of London. If the car being a 5-speed manual didn’t raise your eyebrows, how about I tell you it is actually left-hand drive as well? According to this dealer, the car was originally delivered to Monaco, which probably explains why it only has 35,000 miles. However, a quick check of the UK MOT shows consistent tests starting in 2005, so this one was booted from the beautiful ̶t̶a̶x̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶n̶ vacation spot long ago, probably for being far too plebeian. Naturally, my gear were immediately turning seeing how this would be an ideal import to the US. However, once I saw the price, I threw in the towel rather quickly.
The 964 Porsche 911 Speedster is still one of those models that I can’t believe Porsche actually produced. In a time when the company was strapped for cash, they went through the trouble of engineering a bunch of new parts only to produce 936 examples. Maybe it had something to do with 427 of them going to the US for big profits? One would think they all would be sold with the traditional 5-speed manual gearbox given this was a homage to the original Speedster and that is overwhelmingly the enthusiasts choice, but believe it or not, a handful of them were made with the 4-speed Tiptronic automatic gearboxes. Perhaps they had some leftover as the 964 production was wrapping up or some kind of market research said it was a good idea, but either way they are out there. This example up for sale in Japan is exactly that.
The Alpina B6 continued from the E30 generation in the new E36 chassis in 1991, while the last of the prior generation cars were still in US showrooms. Alpina took the basic M50 and shape of then-top-of-range 325i and upped the ante; they bored the displacement to 2.8 liters, stuck Mahle pistons, a special exhaust, Bilstein shocks, 17″ wheels, and the normal assortment of aerodynamic tweaks and interior details to create the B6 2.8/2, which could be had in coupe or sedan form. With 240 horsepower on tap, it offered M3-level performance two years before the E36 M3 debuted.
While these are the least potent of the E36 Alpina variants, they’re still quite special and very rare – just 40 coupes and around 180 sedans were produced before the B6 3.0 replaced it in mid 1993. This particular example, though, comes via Japan and is already imported to the US – if you’re willing to pay:
