1978 Mercedes SL Turbo Diesel

A brief history told to us by the previous owner. The car started it’s life as a gold left hand drive vehicle in 1978. It was imported to the middle east where it was painted red. After many years in the middle east it was shipped over to Germany before coming over to the UK. The UK owner was a London taxi driver who had a passion for diesel cars so not only did he convert the vehicle to right hand drive but he fitted it with a very rare and very desirable G Wagon turbo diesel engine. The engine has been professionally fitted, the only way you’d know from seeing it is the discrete Turbo Diesel badge on the rear of the car.  Not sure if there are any SL’s on the road today with the G Wagon turbo diesel engine so you may be buying the only one in existence…although this can’t be verified.

The car was brought in to us originally to have a few welding repairs done as part of a full but sympathetic restoration. Once we had started to strip the car we brought to the owner’s attention that there was more work than he originally thought at which point he decided to use his funds differently. Rather than spending more on the restoration he opted to buy himself a nice new ‘everyday’ car.

So we have inherited the Mercedes SL as a future restoration but due to our diary being quite full and space being quite limited I doubt we will get time soon to be starting on the work so thought it was best to sell on to someone who can give it the time.

As much as the work looks huge it’s really not, if you have the skills and tools to do it. And as it’s an SL, parts are easily available.

The car comes with a second set of seats (the ones that were fitted were not the correct ones), it comes with the correct ones also. It also comes with a new wing. The soft top is in very good condition and it also comes with a black hard top and stand.

As you can see, the car came to us, in the condition you see in the first photo 5 weeks ago, almost complete and we’ve stripped it. Everything we removed we have kept.

The engine runs great, it also benefits from a reconditioned turbo that was only fitted in June 2015 at a cost of £564. She has barely covered any miles since then. We had it running throughout the project and even drove it (minus the seats and body parts) up to where we have now stored it.

Comes with lots of receipts, old MOT’s and bits of historic documentation.