Junkyard Find: 1974 Mercedes-Benz 450SL
When I lived in California, I’d see R107s in self-service junkyards all the time; since moving to Denver a couple of years back, I see them only occasionally. There was this ’78 450SLC last summer and that was about it. Last week, though I found this screaming yellow Malaise Era kokainwagen.
This one entered the used-parts ecosystem in fairly beat/rusty condition (yes, Midwesterners, I know this is amateur-grade rust), and quite a few bits have already been picked from it.
I like these cars so much that I’ve been trying to buy the Rally Baby Racing ’75 450SL (which is street-licensed) for the last ten months. It’s a slow and heavy race car, but would look great on the street.
This engine would look great in a fenderless ’39 Opel, ja?
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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450SL an icon in its day.. The first owner rolled around the summer of 74 with the unescapable news of a disgraced president playing out on the radio, In 74 British Leyland would have liked you believe their Triumph Stag a worthy contender. Build quality & brand duration not even close. I would have desired balloon whitewalls & color-coded hubs with that yellow more than euro-spec bumpers.
Since I'm too lazy to search for the answer myself, do people ever do SBC swaps in these cars? I always liked this body style, but I can't imagine 35+ year old Mercedes-Benz V8's are easy to work on or find parts for.