1966 Mercedes-Benz 230S

The vehicle was ordered by KINDS, the Mercedes Benz Dealers based in Malta, on behalf of Squadron Leader Page who was stationed there with the Royal Air Force in 1966. Production delays meant that it missed the usual railcar delivery, so it was specially driven to Venice in order for it to complete its journey on board S.S. Citta-de-Tunisia. Squadron Leader Page drove it on local plates in Malta until August 1967, when he had it shipped back to the UK where it gained its current registration number of JWM784F.

He kept it until the 25th August 1982 when he sold it to a Mr Miller who embarked on a three-year restoration to bring it to the condition you see here.

The current owner bought it eleven years ago in a fit of nostalgia; he has very fond memories of sitting in the back of his father’s 230S as a child, sighting down on other road users using the Mercedes emblem on the bonnet… 

He’s loved and cherished the car since then but he simply isn’t using it as much as he thought he would, so he’s decided that the time has come to let the car go to an owner who can use it and enjoy it.

The bodywork was restored in the eighties; old invoices & photos show that it was stripped to a bare shell, after which is was sandblasted clean before being carefully prepared and finally repainted in its original colour. More bodywork appears to have been undertaken in 1992, using genuine Mercedes-Benz panels and totting up the various bills gives us a total figure in excess of £6,000 - or almost £12,000 in today’s money! Please see the photographs in the listing that show the work being undertaken. 

Or, you could just look at the shutlines, which tell you all you need to know about the craftsmen that worked on the car and the finish they achieved helped, of course, by the fact that Mercedes-Benz built these things properly in the first place.

The underside is very nearly as clean as the topside, having been painted rather than heavily undersealed. There have been some repairs - and we acknowledge that those made to the rear of the sills could be neater - but it’s all visible and potential buyers will be able to assess the car’s solidity for themselves without having to peel away thirty year’s-worth of black gunk to see what’s lurking underneath.

Of course, the years have taken their slight toll and there is the odd stonechip, scuff and minor spot of surface rust. There’s nothing there that would worry us but the rear wheelarches will need some work in the medium-term, as will the nearside front suspension mounting area, which a (possibly over-zealous) MOT tester picked up as an advisory item during the car’s last inspection in 2017. 

Other than that, the exterior looks fabulous, helped by better-than-average chromework. 

The interior is a riot in red, being so fabulously over-the-top that it almost comes full circle back to discreetly decadent. All the seats are in fine condition, being free of rips, tears and the sort of other damage you’ve probably seen on similar cars.

The headlining is in excellent condition, as are the door cards, dashboard, gauges and switches. 

New carpets were commissioned and fitted by the car’s previous owner in the period immediately prior to him selling it. This means that while they are 12 years-or-so old they’ve probably seen less than a 1,000 miles of use, so they still look like new. 

The boot area is as clean as the rest of the interior and it looks like the interior re-trim included new carpets in there, too. Lifting the carpets shows solid, clean metal, so there is nothing nasty skulking underneath. Oh, and the spare wheel looks to be new, as does the tyre fitted to it. 

All pretty gorgeous…

The earlier restoration covered the mechanical components too - and the bill for this was almost as big as the one for the coachwork! More recent work includes new fuel lines and radiator hoses, and the owner tells us that he isn’t aware of any problems with the car, telling us that the engine is “very strong and torquey” and “runs beautifully”.

Some recent suspension fettling has left it taut and free of rattles and clunks, and he has even gone to the trouble of importing the correct 13-inch white-wall tyres from America.

The 230S comes with a thick wad of old service invoices, bills and other miscellaneous paperwork. The comprehensive nature of this documentation goes a long way to explaining why this car is as good as it is today: anyone who takes the time and trouble to retain and collate paperwork on this scale is exactly the sort of person you want to buy a used car from. That all three owners have done so is almost unbelievable.

And it doesn’t end there because the car also comes with its original service and owner’s handbook, a type-written potted history, a set of beautifully printed Mercedes-Benz maps and a worldwide guide to servicing agents, which isn’t a feature we’ve ever seen before!

Please visit the documents section of the gallery of this listing where you will find photos of this and other paperwork to support our claim that this car has been restored and maintained to the very highest standard.

We don’t think we’re the only people who think a Fintail is one of the coolest saloons on the planet – and then with this colour combination, and condition…

Rarity and condition make cars like this hard to value. On the one hand a vehicle in this condition should be extremely valuable, if only because restoring one to the same condition would be a thankless and mind-bogglingly expensive task. Yet, on the other hand the prices of these old Mercedes W111s are still lagging behind where we think they should be.

This is a long-winded way of saying that we think it will sell for around £8-11,000, which seems an absurdly small sum for the amount of car you get. This means that the new owner is likely to get themselves a bit of a bargain, especially when you see the prices currently being achieved by the previous generation cars. 

With this in mind, we would strongly urge potential bidders to view the car in person because this might just be one of the last opportunities you might have to buy one for an affordable price.

The car can be seen in Milton Keynes; to arrange an appointment please use the ‘Contact Seller’ button at the top of the listing. Feel free to ask any questions or make observations in the comments section below, or try our ‘Frequently Asked Questions’.

If needed, please remember we have a network of trusted suppliers we work with regularly and can recommend: Thames Valley Car Storage for storing your car, AnyVan for transporting it, and Footman James for classic car insurance.