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The Mercedes-Benz 190SL has one of a the craziest price deltas considering they all are the same car. A running project will get you in the game at around $40,000, while a restored example is north of $200,000 and beyond. Anywhere in between those two numbers, your mileage will vary (no pun intended) on how nice a car it is. Truth be told, the 190SL is much more of a looker than a driver, as it is a car that was built in the 1950s and is very much not the big brother 300SL. Thankfully Mercedes was not shy with the color combinations both inside and out, so your heart can run wild in terms of what flavor you’d like.
Today, we have a 1961 up for sale in a lovely shade of blue with a dark blue fabric top. From the outside, it looks fairly nice and has a more than reasonable price tag of $70,000. Oh, but wait until you open the doors and peek inside.
Update 12/17/19: It appears this listing was fraudulent – sometimes if it looks to good to be true…
Last week I checked back in on the Mercedes-Benz 190SL with the craziest engine swap I’ve ever seen in W121, a Toyota 1UZ-FE. Despite it being a very nice and exceptionally clean build, the new $160,000 price tag still has it for sale with no takers yet. It is one thing to convince someone to spend $160,000 and a whole other thing to convince them to spend it on a 1962 Mercedes convertible with a Toyota engine. Naturally, I wanted to flip it 180 degrees and look at a totally stock 190SL and a much more reasonable price tag. This 1960 up for sale in Massachusetts is actually a really nice example for 133,000 miles and has an even better price tag. How much?
Yesterday I checked out an absolutely pristine 1970 Mercedes-Benz 280SL and it got that way by no accident. It was a total restoration down to the bare metal, including the engine, then rebuilt over a three-year period. As a result, the car carried a mega price tag of $259,000. Worth it? If you wanted a brand new Pagoda, yes. Personally I think I’d be thrilled with a W113 for half that price, but some people want it all and they pay for it. Today, I wanted to rewind the clock another 10 years back to the 190SL. Just like the Pagoda, this 1960 was totally stripped down and rebuilt with everything new and now looks like a brand new car. The price? Even higher than the Pagoda.
This is a new one more me. No, not the gorgeous Mercedes-Benz 190SL, but a car that is so perfect that is actually has its own hardback book with glossy pages showing off how beautiful it is. That is the level of perfect we are dealing with today with this 1960 W121. This isn’t an original time capsule or forget gem that has been buried away for 50 years, this 190SL actually has over 65,000 miles on it. Of course, this roadster has had a full nut and bolt rotisserie restoration done to it and by the looks of it, it wasn’t time or money wasted. Everything about the 190SL is perfection and of course, the price tag reflects that. So how much for all this perfection?
This is a new one for me. A car so far gone, so decrepit, so haggard that it’s only salvageable parts are maybe some gauge cluster faces and one windshield wiper arm. All of this for the price of a new Mercedes-Benz CLA250. I’m not joking and neither is the seller of the 1957 Mercedes-Benz 190SL in Ohio. What once was a beautiful Mercedes-Benz convertible, is a now crumbling under the weight of it’s own rust. I’m not sure where to being or where to end with this 190SL but I do know that the price, $32,950, is well, a little optimistic in my opinion.
