Enthusiasts Blogging Our Favorite Classifieds
Elvis Presley loved his cars. Or maybe he just liked being seen in cars. Either way, he had his far share of flashy automobiles in his life. Cadillac, Lincoln, Rolls-Royce, Mercedes-Benz highlighted a list which included other not-so-glorious makes that just looked flashy. Often when we see ”Elvis cars” come up for sale, they aren’t actually his cars. Usually they were bought by him and given as gifts to family or friends. Today’s featured 1971 Mercedes-Benz 280SEL isn’t that case.
A 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.
Earlier today we featured a clean 1993 Mercedes-Benz 500SEL. It’s hard to believe that only two generations separate that car from the 1969 280SE that we see here for sale in California, but such is the staying power with Mercedes’ Sonderklasse. With fuel injection and a four-speed automatic gearbox, this was a car ahead of its time. This particular 280SE is almost identical to the dark blue 1972 example that my grandfather drove here in the US right before retiring back to Portugal. That would be a car that would start a long tradition of Mercedes-Benzes in my family.
I’ve referenced the 2000 Mercedes-Benz C280 that my mother has owned for the last 14 years on occasion here at GCFSB. It’s been a dependable machine, racking up close to 130,000 miles so far and not skipping a beat. No matter how many new cars I may get behind the wheel of, each time I’m reacquainted with the C280, it’s like meeting up with an old friend. It is just a comfortably reassuring automobile. I like to think of the W202 and the G-class, which is still in production, as some of the last true Mercedes-Benzes, carrying on with DNA from cars like this 280SE we see here for sale in Illinois. Other than the fact they both have 2.8 liter six cylinder engines, on the surface there isn’t much in common. Dig deeper, however, and it becomes apparent why these kind of cars are still driven daily and have been in families for years as heirlooms, handed down from generation to generation.
Having grown up with Mercedes-Benzes in the family, I think that experience is part of the reason why I am sometimes a bit dismayed at…
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