Junkyard Find: 1977 Mercedes-Benz 450SLC
The value of a Mercedes-Benz R107/C107 goes down to a hair’s-breadth over scrap price once it becomes non-perfect, and so it’s no surprise that these things have been quite common in American self-serve wrecking yards for the last couple of decades. We’ve seen this ’80 450SL, this ’74 450SL, and this ’78 450SLC so far in this series, and here’s a ’77 450SLC that I spotted in the San Francisco Bay Area last year. Such luxury, such status! It almost makes me want to pick up a cheap SLC for myself.
If you were a fairly successful cocaine dealer in Los Angeles, circa 1977, this was the car made for you. About the only competition was the new BMW E24.
This car racked up a mere 182,138 miles during its 36 years on the street. The body is completely rust-free and the interior probably wasn’t bad before junkyard customers started prying parts off it.
Nobody ever buys these OHC V8s at junkyards. Poor unloved old Mercedes.
Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.
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Growing up in Salt Lake City, Utah, I always thought it would be cool to own an "SLC". I liked the body style better than the SL convertible. I imagine I'd have been disappointed by the performance though. My mom had a 1977 W116 280SE-- I imagine the driving experience would have been similar.
My parents liked big cars. When the OPEC embargo happened and gas was (semi) rationed, people were practically giving away gas guzzling V8 luxury cars. As we lived in a small city where not many miles were required to get around, my parents jumped at the chance. Mom got a '68 Continental. Dad got a '73 450SEL. Both cars got 10 MPG. Just like buying a used BMW 750il for a song today, the Merc was a fool's bargain. Probably could have bought a crappy used car every year for what it cost to keep the Merc running, and in typical style for a German car of the day, the air conditioning was 100% ineffective. Also, all the "power" accessories were vacuum-operated, so one cracked vacuum hose underhood could mean the power locks going crazy on the freeway. But my God the thing was handsome, even with the weird 1973 stacked bumpers.