W116 350SEL

[Des]

I think it was Oscar that asked recently about the numbers produced of the 350SEL,
well i just found an article in the library on this site, Your Classic, March 1994, S Class
which mentions that 4266 of this model were produced.

No idea where they got their figures from, you would imagine so sort of MB source,

makes that car rather rare, more so than a 6.9

still im sure this tidbit of information will not put Oscar off joining "club 6.9" in the near future.

Des 

[oscar]

That's a fair few.  But you're right re the 6.9!!  Someone asked about how many RHD 350sel's were running around or produced too.  Also in that same thread, although I haven't found it yet, I'm sure there was some more figures quoting production figures and which was the least produce.  I remember being shocked at the result. It might havve been down to 280S and 350sel, but it was probably somethiing different.


In a way I'm surprised the 350se/l kept getting sold in Aus.   Thinking about it now, the complete choice of engine sizes should've gone to the bigger market like the US and one would think the the 350 would've been dropped in favour of the 450 variants in Oz.   Of the range and choice, the US did I suppose get the 300sd, Oz got the 350.

[s class]

I found this data somewhere, can't remember - maybe it came via Nutz?

280S     : 128,848
280SE   : 150,593
280SEL  :    7,032
350SE   :   51,100
350SEL  :    4,266
450SE   :   41,604
450SEL  :  59,578
6.9       :    7,380
300SD   :  28,634

Of course the different models have probably suffered different attrition rates.

Ryan

[oscar]

I probably reacted the same way before,  -  WOW - 128,848   280S models!!! I wouldn't have picked that.  I thought they'd be the rareist.

That library comes in handy. I just read they were produced from 1972-1980.  For some reason I thought they were dispensed with in the mid 70's in favour of k-jet 280se/sel's

[Des]

I find it interesting the rarity of the SEL models, seems people didn't take up on these compared to the other models.

[s class]

A lot of those figures can be explained as follows.  It is my understanding that all variants were produced in Germany, but in some countries, such as South Africa, local manufacture was set up but only for standard length versions.  In South Africa, 280S, 280SE and 350SE were produced locally.  Any other variant was a special import, and very very much more expensive.  This system dictated that SE versions outsold SEL's by a much wider margin than one might otherwise expect. 

I think the popularity of the 280S is due to the fact it was quite a lot cheaper than the 280SE.  At least here in South Africa, the main buyers of the W116 when new were older to old males, who probably had little need for more performance than the 280S offered.  Passersby wouldn't have told the difference anyway. 

280SEL and 350SEL are partly so scarce because they were introduced late in the model series.  See the into page of our webside for details.

Ryan