Enthusiasts Blogging Our Favorite Classifieds
Just when you think you hit are ready to swing for a home run, here comes a curve ball in the dirt. Today’s car, a 1986 Mercedes-Benz 300SL up for sale in Italy, is one of those curve balls in the dirt. Maybe more than one.
This car had all the ingredients on the surface to be ideal for me. A Euro-spec car in a rare green color, a brown leather interior, and a five-speed manual transmission paired with the M103 inline-six. Then everything fell apart once I looked a little closer at it.
The E28 is a firm favorite among fans of 80s BMWs, but it’s the M5 and 535iS variants that get most of the attention. It’s not hard to see why. The M5 based on this platform was one of the first super sedans, laying down the classic formula for all modern Q-ships: supreme performance packaged in a stealthy, unassuming exterior. Meanwhile the 535iS appealed to those who wanted a bit of flash but couldn’t quite afford the full cream M-car, and was really just a 535i with firmer suspension, body kit, and sport seats. That isn’t a bad thing. The underlying car, introduced as a range-topper in 1984, was a winner, marrying the bulletproof M30 3.4 liter straight six engine (good for about 182 hp, in US emissions restricted form) with a tractable and responsive chassis. A regular 535i with a manual gearbox therefore offers a fun and relatively affordable alternative to the more expensive E28s out there, and this ’86 is a perfect example of that.
Even though for me the B5 chassis A4 was the beginning of the dilution of the Audi brand, I admit I have always had a soft spot for nice examples. And the first A4 had plenty of things to celebrate. First off, it effectively saved and resurrected the brand in the U.S. from near extinction; consider for a moment Audi sold a total of 18,124 cars in 1995, the same year that the A4 was introduced as a 1996. By 1997, Audi sold 16,333 of just the A4 quattro model alone. As a success, that subsequently meant that there were a plethora of options to be had in the new chassis as production opened up. Soon we had the 1.8T turbo model joining the V6, the V6 was soon revised to have 30 valves, there was a light refresh in ’98 as well and another in ’01, the Avant joined the lineup for ’98, and of course we got a new S4 in 2000.
Considering that for some time there had only been one way per a year to get the small chassis in quattro form, this relatively dizzying array of chassis configurations meant that there are still quite a few nice ones out there to be had. Today finding clean examples is getting hard, and they’re heading up in price:
Sometimes the grass is greener on the side. I’ll make that argument sometimes for car selection for certain European makes, but usually it’s for wild models with extra power or crazy options. Today’s car, a 1995 Mercedes-Benz SL280, is the opposite of those scenarios. It is about a basic as it comes. It’s got a rock solid M104 inline-6, manual climate control, and the real kicker? A five-speed manual transmission. How about we throw in some Monoblocks and finished it off in Almandine Red Metallic just to make it even better?
It’s a bit interesting to consider this car in comparison to a few others I’ve recently posted. Like the 924, most (but not all) of the 928 is overlooked in favor of the car that it was intended to replace. Also like the 924, the 928 was a transaxle car with great weight distribution. Similar to the E36 M3, our European friends got the fun motors for the first few years of production; Euro motors started with 21 horsepower more in the early examples, but the vast gulf came in the early 928S. Introduced in Europe in 1980, the M28.11 4.7 liter S touted 300 horsepower. It wouldn’t be until 1982-3 that the S came to North America, and when it did it only cranked out 234 horsepower in comparison. In fact, U.S. 928s wouldn’t get over 300 horsepower until the S4 in 1987.
So here we have the faster ’83 928S from Europe and it’s got a 5-speed manual. Additionally, to link another series of posts, this one is gold with green leather. What was with this combination?
