1989 Mercedes-Benz R107 300SL

This superb low mileage and utterly original 300SL has to be one of the very best on sale. The car’s been maintained meticulously from new, with an extensive set of invoices from within the Mercedes-Benz service network; including from its supplying Normand Mayfair dealership.

The car’s condition inside and out speaks volumes regarding the level of care it’s received since new in 1989. Tracking the car’s miniscule mileage is easy as we’ve got all service documentation from new, including the supplying letter from sales manager A. R. Wrenn, confirming the car’s options and attached order form from November 1988. Provenance just doesn’t get any better than this.

This R107 has been known to us for several years; in the not-so-distant past we’ve had the pleasure of inspecting it and granting it one of our bulkhead guarantees. We also provided one of our 24-month 5000-mile warranties from 2020 to 2022, which goes to show how seriously former keepers took this car’s care. Paintwork and chrome work still look as good as they would have in the early 1990s and panel gaps are as per the Mercedes-Benz quality controller signed-off in 1989. It seems almost sacrilegious to sit in this SL, with merely a tiny chip to the veneer on the centre console (just below the mirror adjuster) to remind you that this isn’t a new car.

There are several reasons to get excited by the paperwork that accompanies this three-owner car. Not only does it have all the original correspondence from its supplying dealer, but also a stack of on-going care from the same. As part of that is a stack of London Mercedes-Benz dealership invoices from 1989 to 2015, when care passed to a number of big-name exotic and classic specialists. We were a part of that care from 2017, sharing servicing honours with North London based Hexagon Modern Classics, bringing care up to date. Further back, but no less significant, are a pile of MoT certificates from 1992 to 2006, plus all the original owner’s manuals inside the supplying Park Lane dealership leather wallet.

There are surely few, if any, 300SLs out there as original, with fewer miles on the clock, than this one. The mileage might suggest it’s sat unused – which we all know old cars don’t suffer gladly – though this R107 seems to have enjoyed the ideal combination of sparing use with maintenance without hesitation. Its bulging history box file seems almost unbelievable for a car that’s covered fewer than 30k miles in 34 years, but you’d better believe it, it’s all here.