Two Mercedes-Benz 190SL Cars, One Price Gap

This car, Lot 180, sold for $200,360, including buyer’s premium, at RM Auctions’ Monaco sale on May 10, 2014.

This is a European-delivery car that was acquired by the consignor in 2008 and then restored by what the catalog describes as “a noted Mercedes-Benz specialist, formerly employed by Techning Ltd in Padua,” who completely rebuilt the drivetrain and electrical system and performed a highly detailed and well-documented restoration of the body in its original colors.

The catalog describes this as a “frame-off” restoration, which is a misnomer because the SL has a unibody. Anyway, the interior was restored using correct original materials supplied by Ferraresi of Ferrara. The new leather is still lovely and plump, which suits these SLs well.

The Solex carburetors were rebuilt by Dazzi of Parma. Even the dashboard clock was sent to clockmaker Gian Carlo Martini for rebuild. As the catalog claimed, the car remains in exceptional condition, allowing the new owner to enjoy what is essentially a brand-new car, as the 740 km (460 miles) I noted on the clock are presumably all it has covered since restoration.

The car has a coupe chassis prefix — 040 — where roadsters are 042. That means it was originally supplied with a hard top only and no convertible roof. There were other detail differences between the coupe and the roadster, notably in the door trim, until they were standardized in March 1956, which obviously doesn’t affect our cars. A larger rear window came along for both in 1959.

The Bonhams 190SL

1957 chassis 1210427501737

This car, Lot 54, sold at Bonhams’ Spa auction in Belgium on May 18, 2014, for $118,128, including buyer’s premium.

This is a significantly lower purchase price than our other subject 190SL. This 190SL Roadster was delivered new to Los Angeles in 1957, and it was imported into Italy in the 1990s. Restored in its original colors in 2005, it retains matching chassis, engine and gearbox numbers and also comes with the original mechanical dashboard clock.

Obviously having a few miles under its belt since the restoration was completed, the engine bay was used and grubby. This was an older restoration, and even the car’s owner would only go as far as “generally very good to excellent” in his description of the car — and you know how subjective those opinions can be.

As you’d expect after almost 10 years of use, however sparing, the seat leather was baggy, and the paint and structure simply could not be as sharp as a more recently, expensively restored car evidently displaying little use. Indeed, SCM Auction Reporter Leo van Hoorick, who saw the car at Spa, said: “There was something not feeling right. Was it the color scheme (described as Old English White but very beige to me)? I couldn’t figure it out.”

Now this one has a Roadster chassis number, 042, meaning that it was originally supplied only with a soft top and not a hard roof, which after 1956 were all steel, not aluminum. Bonhams correctly describes it as a “Roadster with hardtop” and goes on to describe this as a “factory hard top,” so we can infer that this was ordered from the factory at the same time as the car. The extra cost was around $300 at the car’s launch in 1955.

Puzzling out the price gap

Does the technical difference between the two cars matter? Will anyone notice? I doubt it. Both hard tops appear to have been from the factory — and with the cars when they were new. Further, any soft roof dating from the 1950s would almost certainly have been replaced by now, canceling out any kudos for originality.

Both cars offer the same options of roofwear, even if the chassis numbers suggest that wasn’t the case when they were new. I doubt these cars are ever actually driven with the hard top in place, which is probably why our coupe grew a soft roof.

Alex Finigan of Paul Russell and Company confirmed that the chassis number makes no difference to values today: “It’s all about the condition,” Finigan said.

There was nothing else you could put your finger on that would have made such a difference in price. Both cars still had their original airboxes, where very often the twin Solexes wear aftermarket K&N filters — or even Weber DCOE replacements.

All 190s are manual shift, which is probably only an advantage to auto-snobbish U.K. buyers, but that gearbox does help make the most of the 190SL’s modest 104 horsepower — this is not a car that’s ever going to cause your pantaloons to combust.

Interestingly, 1959 was the lowest production number (the 104 cars listed as made in 1963 were produced in 1962). Only 1,551 cars were produced in 1959, as opposed to 3,332 in 1957.

So let’s put half the price difference — $40k — down to the variance in condition, and another $15k down to the color – the cream paint. Sorry, OEW on this car looks like primer, and buyers are suckers for silver, especially on Merc SLs and Astons. The final $25k is the sprinkling of fairy dust — aka The Monaco Effect — which always artificially inflates prices.

What’s more certain is the ongoing rise of the 190SL. Only 10 years ago, $50k was the norm, which means these cars have quadrupled in price in just a decade. ♦