The W111 coupe is a hell of a design. But it’s one thing just to be a good design. Lots of cars over the years have looked great but when it comes to putting the rubber to the road, well, it’s better off sitting quietly in the Denny’s parking lot on Friday night ‘Cruise Nights’ in small town, USA. Not true of the W111 coupe, and especially not the 3.5. Launched in 1970 to wrap up production of the W111 and make way for the R107/C107, the 280SE 3.5 coupe was the 230 horsepower V8 version to the regular 280SE with the straight-6 M130. Strikingly handsome in almost any color combo, 3.5 coupe values have more than doubled in the last few years. This 1970 located in New York City checks all the boxes if you are looking for the almost perfect classic Mercedes coupe.
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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.Tag: 3.5
We’ve covered a lot of Alpina models on these pages, but today’s example was a new one to me. In fact, it may be a new one to you, too – because this might be the most rare Alpina model produced. Alpina didn’t have a lot to do with the early 7 series for a few reasons; one, they didn’t sell in big numbers and most of Alpina’s work was concentrated on the smaller and sportier 3,5 and 6 series. But BMW offered a factory hotrod itself in the turbocharged 745i in 1981, and at that point Alpina seemed to give up the ghost on development of the E23 – or did it? The problem was that in Great Britain, the 745i wasn’t available, so Alpina dealer Sytner had the company develop a specific U.K market model. Based upon the 735i, the B10 3.5 featured a 261 horsepower Alpina 3.5 liter motor, normal Alpina suspension upgrades and wheels and some subtle exterior and interior changes. Although these cars were not built in Germany, they are nonetheless considered real Alpinas. Only a scant 22 were built, and one is for sale today:
CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1984 Alpina B10 3.5 on eBay
2 CommentsA few years ago, I had the opportunity to attend one of the Mercedes-Benz Club of America’s June Jamboree shows at the Mercedes-Benz Headquarters in Montvale, New Jersey. The car I was driving at the time, a 1998 C230, won a popular choice award, mainly down to condition and originality. Across the parking lot, a car caught my eye that is still haunting me to this day. It was a 1967 250S sedan finished in Arabian Grey with a red MBTex interior. It also had a 4-speed manual gearbox, with floor shift. With the simple dog dish hubcaps over steel wheels, there was something refreshingly honest about this car. This 300SEL 3.5 for sale in Portugal reminds me a lot of that particular Mercedes from years past, albeit this one has the 3.5 liter V8 residing under the bonnet, with leather seating in place of the MBTex.
CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1971 Mercedes-Benz 300SEL 3.5 on eBay
3 CommentsEdit 7/11/2017 – This car is back on the market from the same seller with a reserve auction
Vuarnet shirt, stone-washed high-wasted jeans, neon Wayfarers, legwarmers, Wham!‘s “Make It Big” album playing on your Walkman, a tennis lesson scheduled for later in the day with someone named Chad, Tad or Chaz, and a BMW 3-series; they’re immediately identifiable as a product of the 1980s, even if in this case they were made in the late 1970s. Take a moment to consider the seats in this Alpina; made by Recaro, they’d look as at home on Bill Cosby’s back as he lectured Theo as they would on the race track. But just as those trends from the 80s have been revisited by the “Hipsters” of today, there’s another class I’ve dubbed “Yupsters”, wishing to relive the glory of Wall Street and every club from the Breakfast to the Country. They’re interested in the BMW 3 series, and the major resurgence of the small executive sedan has become ironic in its own right, from the “Respect Your Elders” stickers plastered on cars not much older than the creatures driving them (who, even more ironically, typically don’t know much about history), to the hypocrisy of everyone being different by all owning E30s. The only things missing from the entirely predictable plotline are a Harold Faltermeyer soundtrack and a cameo at the local show by Steve Guttenberg. To me, the 3 series that comes out of all of this smelling like roses is the E21; relatively forgotten and overlooked due to less availability, sport and cliche, a turned up E21 is nonetheless a beautiful thing when properly done:
CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1979 Alpina B6 2.8 on eBay
2 CommentsWe’ve had the pleasure of looking at some pretty cool European and Japanese market Alpinas lately, and another two popped up that were worth considering. One is a B9 3.5; we’ve seen a few of these from the same seller, and this one looks as exceptional as the seller’s previous offerings. Interestingly, where the seller previously had listed the cars on reserve, this time they give us an entry price. The second example is a bit more of a mystery; an Alpina liveried E12, it looks more like an assemblage of parts than an actual original Alpina car. Let’s start there: