Through the Nineteen Eighties, when you wanted an enormous, powerful luxury sedan with otherworldly construct quality and all the newest technological marvels, there was just one rational selection when you had the cash: the Mercedes-Benz W126 S-Class. I see quite a number of W126s during my junkyard adventures, including a pair with higher than 500,000 miles showing on the odometer, but today’s 420 SEL— present in a Denver self-service boneyard recently — is an unusually clean example with heartbreakingly low miles.
For a W126, even a gasoline-burner, 161K miles is just getting broken in!
The inside looks prefer it’s 10 years old, not 35.
The sheetmetal is a bit grimy, but there is no rust and no serious dents.
This automobile had an MSRP of $58,540, or about $155,357 in 2023 dollars. It wasn’t the costliest Mercedes-Benz automobile you might buy in 1988, nevertheless; that honor belongs to the rakish 560 SEC two-door and its $76,380 price tag (a shocking $202,701 after inflation).
The ’88 420 SEL has a 4.2-liter SOHC V8 rated at 201 horsepower and 228 pound-feet. If that wasn’t enough power for the S-Class sedan shopper in 1988, there was the 560 SEL and its 5.5-liter V8 with 238 horses and 287 pound-feet (and a listing price of $69,210, or $183,673 in today’s money).
For those who wanted a manual transmission in your W126, you needed to buy it in Europe (and you could not get three pedals with the largest V8s, even there).
Driver’s-side airbags were optional within the W126 starting in 1981, becoming standard equipment in 1987.
Because it’s at all times 4:20 in Denver, badges from 420 SELs and S 420s are inclined to get pried off cars quickly, after which we will assume that they find yourself on the partitions of groovy little hippie pads. Not on this case!
We will only hope that a few of the nice parts from this automobile will probably be rescued before its date with the crusher.
Go ahead, cruise at 125 mph.
There has at all times been an enormous Mercedes.
This Article First Appeared At www.autoblog.com
