1987 Mercedes-Benz 560SL

This left-hand drive example has been in the UK for just over five years, but has hardly been used in that time, covering only 1100 miles. The car was acquired on a trip to the USA by a collector based in Cumbria - he also picked up a TR6 and an E-type project on the same visit. He has around 50 cars but likes to drive them as much as he can, and this one has simply not been getting the use it deserves and needs a new home.

It’s a car to buy on condition, because it arrived from the States with only a little written history. This frustrating foible of American-sourced cars is quite common and bothers us in Europe more than it seems to affect buyers in the USA, but apart from an old service book, plus the V5C, NOVA document and MOT (expiring at the end of April 2021) there’s not a lot of detail in the history folder. 

It’s showing 168,000 miles which is something of a shock to someone who notices the odometer after admiring the rest of the car…it wears the miles pretty lightly. With a decent folding roof and an excellent original hard-top, it’s got a great deal going for it, especially if you’re in the market for a left-hooker at a sensible price.

The first things you notice are the American features - those rubber-tipped impact bumpers, the quad headlamps and the high-level brake lamp in its own pod on the boot lid. Sorry…trunk lid. The next thing to strike you is the lustrous metallic blue paint with its subtle fine-lined double pinstripe high up around the waist. We can’t swear it’s the factory finish and maybe the front end once had a professional re-paint, but we’re only guessing because of a very slight mis-match in the paint hue.

Elsewhere, there are one or two touched-up chips, various smaller spots and marks, but you have to be looking closely to notice most of this. From a casual walk around, it presents very well. 

Going deeper, we don’t see any signs of accident damage: the panels are straight and just about ding-free and the panel gaps are Merc standard. There’s a scuff to the rubber bumper on the passenger-side front but a bit of blacking would bring all of it almost back to new. There are a few rusty streaks in a door aperture where the soft-top cover panel begins, and in the cover panel itself you can see traces of corrosion developing at its trailing edge, when it’s raised. It’s had a minor dent and scrape on its upper surface too.

There are some funny little scratches on the bonnet above the grille on one side - someone sitting on it with riveted jeans? The SL has had new front tyres fitted since coming to the UK and they have loads of life left; the next owner might want to replace the rears too. Those 16-inch alloys are clean and smart but not polished.

The classic Mercedes-Benz combination of blue paint and grey leather looks right at home here and the hide has generally held up well for a car with this mileage. There’s a slight scuffing and cracking to both seats, especially at the expected trouble-spot on the driver’s side bolster. The carpets and door cards have survived really well but the driver’s sun visor is missing.

The veneers on the dash and centre console show the usual cracks in the lacquer, most of them at the rear of the panel around the gear selector. It’s a well-equipped car with lots of late-model toys like cruise control, an in-dash thermometer and even climate control. The radio-cassette is a delightful 1980s button-fest, and though it wasn’t working until recently we gather a new fuse has fixed the problem. 

The soft-top is a little marked and stained and clearly hasn’t been left up for a while, so it’s rather creased in places. It’s not torn and it looks perfectly sound and useable. The hard top is in great shape…there’s an argument to say that an R107 SL looks even neater and better-proportioned with its hard roof on that with the top down. But that’s up to you!

There’s a good spare under the boot floor, together with a cloth tool roll and a plate from the dealer in Georgia, plus a few items of detached trim. The missing driver‘s sun-visor is in the boot and looks like it will need new plastic fixings to re-fit.

The vendor says the car drives beautifully and that it wouldn’t give him a qualm to jump in it and head off across Europe. That’s how these SLs are supposed to feel: not like flighty two-seat sports cars, but like un-fussed, continent crushing cruisers.

The 560’s gigantic engine does a good job of filling its bay, but the general impression is of a clean and serviceable environment, if not anything detailed to show standard. The bonnet has lost its sound deadening material. 

Underneath you find acres of clean, dry factory underseal which is only beginning to split here and there, revealing painted metal rather than corrosion. We didn’t spot any leaks, though one of the exhaust boxes has a small rust-hole.

We have a few MOT’s from the car’s time in England, a 560SL owner’s manual and an old service book revealing an early life in St Louis, Missouri, first owned by the Weiss and Neuman Shoe Company and sold by Boulevard Motors Inc. There’s also a book explaining the high-tech radio, an application for release on payment of Customs Duty (part of the import process) and a V5C in the vendor’s name.

This is an interesting one. If you’ve been looking for an R107 SL bargain, this might be it: you don’t have the kind of corrosion worries that cause buyers of elderly UK-market examples to wake up in a cold sweat, but neither do you have the significant premium usually attached to the desirable galvanised late-model SLs.

The mileage and the car’s original, lightly blemished condition are the reasons for this, plus of course the left-hand drive and American looks. It could all be swapped for a Euro-spec appearance, but that would take away from the car’s original identity and make no difference at all to the driving experience.  

We think this car will sell for £15,000 - £20,000. For that money, you could either treat it as a sound basis for a light restoration, removing signs of age and really detailing it, or you could book the first post-Covid continental holiday you can find and enjoy left-hand drive motoring and summer weather in perfect harmony.  

Viewing is always encouraged, and this particular car is located with us at The Market HQ near Abingdon; 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’.