What kind of offer for a 1967 230SL

[bodyman1977]

Today was the day I was going back to talk about finishing the deal on the car but sadly her oldest son want the car and will be shipping it to CA.  Well sadly for me but good to see a family member get the car, hopefully he will put the time and money into it that it deserves.  Thank you all again for the advice on the car, with any luck I will find one again someday and will be able to pick it up.

[Rolf-Dieter ✝︎]

BodyMan,

That is too sad then as you say good it will stay in the family. Perhaps you find a nice one here ---> http://www.hemmings.com/classifieds/carsforsale/

Check out the SL's for sale 1963 to 1971

[bodyman1977]

Really is sad.  I have fallen in love with the style of these cars.  I was hoping to drive it to see if it was as much fun to drive as it is to look at.  I will use the link to keep my search going. 

[Bonnyboy]

You can't give up now - offer the son your number in the event that if he ever tires of the car you are there with cash in hand.  We are a small breed who actually like the car.   If the son is a hot rod hemi kind of guy he may tire quickly and having your phone number handy may see the car into your hands someday.   I run accross Pagodas all over.  Only ever found a couple real deals (1/2 of what you would expect to pay) but they are out there.   

When I was in my vintage motorcycle days I would post wanted adds in the local Craigslist, put notes on motorcycles and tell everyone I met that I was looking for vintage bike projects.   I only kept 2 but went through 15+ and said no to 50+, just having fun with the "hunt".  This was at a time when people said that vintage motorcycles (especially 60's Triumphs) are all restored and sitting in museums.  I ended up with several non british bikes and traded several of those for a bottle of rum or an engine rebuild or a weekend vacation at a cabin or future consideration.   You never know where one will show up.    Now I am into inexpensive vintage watches (no solid gold - no rolexes) and they tend to follow me home all on their own.  Still looking for a $25  70's Automatic Omega Seamaster with a broken glass and mismatched band. 


Try putting a wanted add in your local craigslist - many people who have these cars are not computer savy but someone who is may rely your message to an owner.   Cruise all of the body shops in your area and talk to the oldtimers - offer a finders fee - you gotta do something if you really want one of these.

You could also try this method: 
Get the money needed into a bank account with easy access (number 1 rule - no financing toys - its gotta be cash).  Then go find a dark corner away from electronic equipment and outside noise and make yourself comfortable.  Close your eyes, relax and visualize an old autobody shop off the main strip a couple towns away with a couple broken down BMWs and a Volks bug outside - in the rear corner is a 1965 230sl missing the headlights and most of the paint, chrome removed, covered in sanding dust, interior 1/2 taken apart with all of the heavy lifting already done.   The owner ran out of money and the shop owner wants it out of there and is willing to sell it for storage fees.  Now go out and get your car.     

[bodyman1977]

Bonnyboy,
     Great post!  I did post a wanted add on craigslist and contacted an add in CA for this one: http://losangeles.craigslist.org/lac/ctd/4215888070.html .  I would much rather find a local car but do realize these are not as common as the cars I’m used to buying so I might have to expand my search.  Speaking of the car in CA, does anyone know or have knowledge of the car?  I tried to convince the son he should buy this one and I will buy this one and it will save on the shipping but no sale.  I did get to hear the 230SL start today.  Come to find out it had 2 broken spark plug wires.  There was an issue installing one of the new spark plugs, looks like it got cross threaded at some point.  For an engine with a quarter of a million miles it sounded great!  Anyway, I appreciate the encouragement and will continue my search.

[royroberson]

I am the son from California who took the 1967 230 SL away that this blog is referring to. This was my father's car since the 1970s. He died 10 years ago and I could not bear to see the car leave the family.

After shipping it to SoCal, I visited the MB Classic Center near my office and they said that a full restoration would be more than $350,000 USD! A friend who restores 356 Porsches also told me that his average restoration is around $250,000 and the ari-colled Porsches are much less involved. Several other facilities in SoCal do beautiful "no limit" restorations, but they too will throw away every part that is not perfect and you will leave with a new re-manufactured car that looks like the one you brought in while they keep about 3 times the value of the finished project.

I took it to the 2 largest MB dealerships in the US and both studied it for a week or more and finally said they were not set up to service this age of car. Even though it may be technologically far less complex, the repair process involves logical diagnosis and manual reconditioning... modern cars are diagnosed electronically and parts that have reached their design failure age are swapped out quickly and profitably.

A local independent MB repair and restoration facility had the car for 2 months but refused to give me a firm price for anything. I got a bad feeling about them, paid them for a valve adjustment and service and took the car to a friend's shop where they do "preservation" work on a variety of sports cars including several Pagodas.

The car is rust and collision free, every system needs attention, every rubber bushing or mount is worn out, the engine is full of sludge but still runs with OK compression (110 to 140), the suspension needs everything, the gas tank needs relining... etc.

If you are interested here is what I expect most people would have to spend to recondition a complete, running but un-restored original car that has been out of service for many years (nice and original looking, but not reliable or safe to drive):

Mechanical & Undercarriage - $25,000
Engine - $15,000 (this may not be necessary)
Interior & Soft Top - $12,000
Paint & Body - $10,000 (this could wait)
Chrome & Rubber - $5,000 (needs to be water tight)
AC system - $5,000
Lenses & Lights - $2,000
Other parts and reconditioning - $4,000

That is $78,000
Plus the base Car valued at $20,000

That totals close to $100,000 plus 2 -years of your time to complete, trouble shoot, source parts and fuss over details. Plus a lot more if any parts are missing or not suitable for reconditioning.

This is why these cars are rising in price: All of the economy of scale and mass production that the factory was able to achieve during their manufacture is now converted to a hand-built 1-off manufacturing process. Who is profiting from this appreciation? Those that perform the reconditioning or manufacture the parts or resale cars without restoring them. Oh and those lucky few who have kept their cars in good condition or who have performed older restorations when the cars were less costly to repair.

[Garry]

Hi Roy,

Welcome to the Group.  There are quite a few here that either have had the car from new or their family has done so passing from one generation to the next. It always makes a great story.

 One of our members, Tom Collit in LA  (LA Restorations) does restorations on the Pagoda and maybe is worth your effort to get in touch with him.  He did some excellent work on an XK E Type for me several years ago and was reasonable in costs.

Look forward to your participation on the forum in future.

Garry

[Bonnyboy]

Mr. Royroberson

I may not have read between the lines but are you gonna tackle the car yourself or are you looking to sell it?   What you described is par for the course and nothing new to this group.  I think mine was in worse shape when I got it but the beauty of these cars is that they were meant to be tinkered with.  Mostly everything is servicable.  If you are looking to sell, throw up a couple pictures and a price and I'm sure it will be gone quickly.

If you are going to keep it, hang on, its a heck of a fun ride.

[GGR]

If you want to keep the car, you would better do most of the work yourself. Labor cost is the main killer. These cars are not that complicated and you will find a lot of help and knowledge here. Rust free and collision free is an excellent starting point, though rust free is often a relative term.

If you want to sell it, as you already figured out, you may not recoup the expenses you will put in the car, apart from having it run and drive. So you'd better sell it as is.

[pj]

Hi Roy,
I am really thrilled to pick up this thread after a year and have you tell us how the story is going. It would be a shame to lose you, and who knows what would happen to your beautiful car. As the other fellows have said, your analysis of the situation is quite reasonable. But every contributor here has their own story and each of us probably has a slightly different reason for being involved. So if you feel that the car is worth hanging on to because of the family tradition, or because you think it's fun to drive, or whatever else you might feel, that's good enough.

Maybe we put so much effort into the technical side of things, that we forget to apply ourselves to the human side. Maybe the Technical Manual should have a section called "Reasons to keep the car." I have at least 4 reasons myself:

• I was born in Germany so I want to help protect Germany's heritage of fine engineering and design
• the car is soooo much fun to drive
• although I'm all thumbs in the workshop and hardly do anything on the car myself, I enjoy reading and learning about it
• it's a diversified investment  

Please keep us in the loop. The guys here are super helpful, and there are always options.

[nirmal]

Hi Roy

The cost of restoration in the United States are very high unless you have the knowledge and do it yourself. I purchased my 1969 280 sl in Dubai for about $22000. It had minimal rust and the fuel pump was not working and had a few minor issues. Over the past ten years I have spent about $10000 on it including changing the mounts, new fuel pump, stainless steel exhaust, new radiator, bushes and other rubber parts. I recently had the hardtop restored (it was rusted as it had been left behind and the seller had earlier been unable to find it) and got the fuel injection pump calibrated. The car is now in great condition
I understand that good restoration work is done in Poland where the cost is more reasonable. Maybe cheaper to ship the car by container to Poland and get the job done there. On the net I found this site http://car-restoration-art.com. Check it out.

Nirmal
1969 280 sl
1953 MG TD
2012 Jaguar 2012

[mmizesko]

Roy,

Having just gone through a Psuedo-Restoration project myself, I would doubt that you would have to pay as much as you restore the car to it's former glory.  The restoration that the Classic Center does is totally Frame-off, and restores the car to what it would have been rolling off the line, to the freshly painted bolt.  You can google these projects at the classic center and motoring investments.  I chose a different path, and I am thrilled.

I would look through the "vendors" on this site and contact them about the project.  These Gentlemen are extremely knowledgeable, and in most cases extremely altruistic in helping bring these cars back to life.  Someone who works on many of these cars exclusively will know where the landmines are in the project.  The most important considerations for me, was that the car needed a straight and uncompromised frame, manageable pan rust, and decent chrome and trim (including headlight doors).  These engines are incredibly robust and can be refurbished for, in most cases, about five thousand dollars in the right hands (make sure you replace all the seals and seall all the bolts into the block, to prevent leaks).  The largest expense may be re-doing and milling the heads and valves.   Fuel pump, and injection system may be another couple of thousand to get working right. As for the mounts, (subframe, engine, and tranny) those are easy and will greatly improve the driveability of the car.  New soft top and seat covers may cost you another $4,000 or so, Getting the dash in shape with new heater controls is time consuming (another couple of grand).  The transmissions are built like tanks, so I doubt money needs to be spent there, except for bushings.  So, barring any frame issues, you're looking at about $20k to have a reliable road car.

I'm not sure how you came up with $25k for the Mechanical and undercarraige, but I don't know the car.  The only pic I see is a rotted lower tail panel, which can be bought for under $300 from K&K, and welded in.   The body work is tricky.  Alot of unseen rot can drive your costs way up.  With welding repairs in a few spots (behind wheel wells, tail panel) a good paint job is going to be $10-12k, assuming you remove and replace much of the trim yourself. One of the costliest parts of the project is getting all the chrome and trim right.  The Chromed-brass side moldings, and lower aluminum trim is very expensive to replace, as are bumpers.  The other big nut are the headlight doors and tail lights.  If yours are shot, you are looking at $4k to replace both.  New Coker tires:  $1500.

I'm sorry for rambling, but I don't believe that the W113 would cost anyone $75k to put back on the road, unless it was truly rotted to the ground.  (I'd guess $20-30k) If you love the car, and want to restore a moment in time in your childhood, or parent's life, you should go for it.  If you have $40-50k into it, you'll still be in the black, given today's valuations.  But you will have to dig into the folks in this group, and find the help you need.  Stay away from the "restoration houses" that restore everything from Benzes to Porsches to Mustangs.  The restorations you see done on Cable TV are entertainment, but a total waste of time and money. If you want a museum piece, I'd start with a better car, and spend the money with the classic center or motoring investments or Buds Benz.

I hope you do it.

Mike Mizesko
Columbus, OH