Casey's 1978 Euro 6.9

[Casey]

Finally the time of arrival is drawing near.  My transport arrangement will be leaving from North Carolina this coming Monday, picking up the car in San Jose on the 20th after stopping for a parts pickup along the way for me, and the lot should be arriving towards the end of the month.  Transport is costing me slightly more than half of the purchase price of the car, but at least I know that it will be in good hands and not damaged during transit.  Here are some recent pictures in the meantime:

Production #4573.

Paint/Option codes are as follows - if anybody could help out with clarifying the option codes or the questions below I'd appreciate it:

172G - Glasurit, Anthracite Grey Metallic.

581 - Automatic Climate Control.
870 - Seat heater for left front seat.
871 - Seat heater for right front seat.
877 - Reading lamps in the rear.
991 - Special-order options by customer request, "see production order for details". Presumably this would include the rear reclining seat feature and rear seat heaters.
260 - Elimination of 450SEL  badge from from trunk lid
261 - Elimination of 6.9 model designation from trunk lid (somebody's added a badge to this car post-production)
410 - Electric sunroof.
511 - Becker cassette radio. (has since been removed and replaced with an aftermarket stereo setup in this car).
531 - Automatic antenna.
223 - Foglamp wiring for France, Switzerland, Australia, Sweden, Norway, which I believe means the fog lights will stay on if I hit the high beams, or that I can use the fog lights alone...

[ZCarFan]

That's going to look awfully nice once it's done

[Depa77450sel]

The interior looks pretty nice. I love the velour I had sheep skin covers but when I took them off and saw what was underneath I couldn't go back. Good luck with this project Casey

[adamb]

Nice. Looks very salvageable. It's going to need some paint though.

[AndreasF]

Looks like a perfect base for a restauration. What are your plans for the car?

[nathan]

rear seat heaters, rear electric seat. sweet. i reckon there would only be a couple of hundred if that that had the rear electric seat. very rare. velour looks in top nic. shame that some muppet has cut holes in the door car for speakers. someone loved that car, the 6.9 dash mat!!
congrats

[Casey]

rear seat heaters, rear electric seat. sweet. i reckon there would only be a couple of hundred if that that had the rear electric seat. very rare. velour looks in top nic. shame that some muppet has cut holes in the door car for speakers. someone loved that car, the 6.9 dash mat!!

The electric rear seat is *THE* reason I bought the car.  WGB has this option in his car, and I've heard of two others existing that have been found in junk yards over the years but are long gone.  So when I saw this show up on eBay I couldn't resist trying to arrange a purchase.  I'd also been idly thinking that one day I'd like a 6.9,  but strongly preferred a euro version.  The front and rear seat heaters and origin of Switzerland were icing on the cake.  I was very very lucky to be able to get it when I did, and owe much gratitude for a personal loan to help with the purchase.  Was also very lucky to get it for the price I did which I consider very fair - it has not been running in about 4 years which I suppose kept the bidding reasonable.  Mice have been living in the engine bay and it will need a new wiring harness and ballast resistors and for some as-of-yet unknown reason the coolant has all leaked out.  The second highest bidder was a car collector in Qatar according to the seller, and I just barely managed to win the auction!

The dash is cracked underneath the mat but I really don't care.  A new dash will be going in at some point.  I believe the previous owner did indeed love the car, but he unfortunately died and I think that's why the car ended up parked since a few years back.  Like myself he had a bad habit of collecting various cars and other toys that he enjoyed - I've heard some pretty funny stories from his daughter who sold the car.

Here are some pictures of the previous owner, may he rest in peace:







Pretty sure the passenger in this picture was more accustomed to riding along in the 6.9...



This one comes with a funny story...it's the original owner with a boat that he hid from all his family in storage for 15 years after he bought it in Lake Tahoe.  He knew if he brought one more thing home, or bought one more thing...he was in trouble...so he just hid it instead!

[Casey]

Looks like a perfect base for a restauration. What are your plans for the car?

It's going to get parked in my garage for a few months while I work on getting it up and running again, and save up money to do a full restoration.  I intend to go all out with this car, and for it to be like new when I'm done.  It spent most of it's life in California so is a pretty rust-free example.  The only corrosion I know of is just a bit of surface rust around the sunroof opening.  Now I have not seen it in person as of yet but the seller seems trustworthy and I had a mechanic check out the car as well.  A couple more weeks and I'll be able to go over it thoroughly myself.

[Casey]

Nice. Looks very salvageable. It's going to need some paint though.

I actually think that paint will look really good with just a bit of rubbing compound and detailing products.  But I do intend on a high-quality careful respray.  Honestly I wasn't very excited by the color, but the nice shiny red 450SEL I've been driving has been attracting too much attention from the police who've been giving me speeding tickets so at this point I'm looking forward to it.

[alabbasi]

I actually think that paint will look really good with just a bit of rubbing compound and detailing products.

I think you're crazy

[Casey]

I think you're crazy

Was there ever any doubt?  I'm pretty sure a man cannot own as many old Mercedes as I do and be sane at the same time. 

[arcijack]

expect to spend 20,000. or better on full restoration and the car will still be worth 10,000.00, i have one just like that with heated front and rear seats and all the other accessories, paid 1800.00 for the car so love it for what it is, and never expect to get any return on investment, Arcijack

[alabbasi]

Yep, all you can do is make a 6.9 into a nice driver. If you want a show car, find a low mileage original for $10k to $12k

[Casey]

expect to spend 20,000. or better on full restoration and the car will still be worth 10,000.00, i have one just like that with heated front and rear seats and all the other accessories, paid 1800.00 for the car so love it for what it is, and never expect to get any return on investment, Arcijack

I doubt you have an electric reclining rear seat though? I don't care about return on investment, though I expect these cars to be going up in value over time. This is for me, and if somebody wants to take me reclining rear seat 116 LWB they'll have to pry it from my cold, dead hands. I would honestly turn down an offer of 100k. I'll be disturbing originality by converting to a column shift, installing French headlights, and converting the climate control to manual anyways. Yes a full restoration will cost a significant amount and take a while, but with a price new of 155-160k of today's dollars can you really whine about getting it to a like-new state for 20k? I can't.

Sure beats any new 20k vehicle...

[alabbasi]

I doubt you have an electric reclining rear seat though?

It's pretty cool to see a 6.9 with some early features such as ABS, electric rear heated seats etc, but In the grand scheme of things, I don't think that important when compared to condition, and not that big a deal as I had electric heated seats in all of my SEL W126 models and never used them

The big issue for these cars is rust and in order to really get to the rust you have to take the car completely apart. Randy indicates $20k, I would say that a thorough job will cost in excess of $50k.

This is how far I took my 280SL before sending it to the sand blasters.



You would think that this would eliminate all rust but you still have to go deeper and cut away the box sections in order to really get to all of it.

Here's a picture of the bumper support after we cut it away. As you can see, externally, it looked solid but there was a lot of scale on the inside.



In my opinion, the effort of going through this process may pay off with a pagoda, but on any MB sedan, it's almost always better to find a rust free example as you'll never be able to make a nice car out of a rusty one without pulling the whole thing apart.

I admire your enthusiasm and I'm not trying to knock your car. I've just been down that road, the first in 2005 with my first 6.9 which is documented here:

http://alabbasi.com/450SEL.htm

The best you can do is try to get it as nice as you can without losing your shorts in the process.