MERCEDES 300SEL 6.3

ONE OF the great tragedies of car manufacturing is that we don’t all get to do factory tours, particularly behind the door marked ‘Skunkworks’. This car began life as a project more or less done on the sly by a Benz engineer, luxuriating in the name Erich Waxenberger.

Until this point, the Paul Bracq-designed 300 series was running perfectly adequate inline sixes. Young Waxenberger’s plan was to reef out the six and shoe-horn the monster 6.3 V8 out of the 600 series Pullman limo.

Thought it weighed nearly two tonnes on the road, the five-seater could do the 0 to 100km/h sprint in 6.3 sec and was capable of a top speed of 235km/h when launched in Geneva in 1968. Of course it cost a bomb, but that didn’t deter some 6500 well-heeled buyers.

Today, it’s still a weird experience wandering up to the thing. It looks terribly upright and conservative, with very little hint of the vast reserves of grunt lurking under the hood. The giveaway is the subtle 6.3 badge on the bootlid. A raised fist in a chain-mail glove would have been more appropriate.

Slip inside and you’re confronted by a sea of leather and timber. Seating is more lounge chair than performance car. The giant steering wheel is an instant reminder of its era, as is the instrument binnacle dominating the driver’s view.

As you’d expect, the thing is quiet and ultra-civilised as you amble along. There’s a bit of body roll happening in the turns and you definitely get the sense this is a big, heavy and solid car.

A fair bit of the prim and proper attitude gets flung out the window when you plant the right slipper into the carpet. It squats a little on its hindquarters and flings itself forward at the scenery at a very undignified pace. This could become addictive!

Our example underwent a major refurbishment back in the USA some years ago and comes across as being in very good shape. Lorbek in Port Melbourne has the keys.