Reader find of the month

Send in a 200-word story plus a selection of photographs of your discoveries to the usual C&SC address or e-mail alastair.clements@haymarket.com and you could win £100

This Mercedes-benz 190SL has been recently been disinterred from a shed near Echunga in the Adelaide Hills of South Australia. The original Australian-delivered two-owner car has been off the road since 1976, following a ‘failure to proceed’ – apparently due to a cylinder-head problem. There’s a brand-new head stored in the boot.

Nearby Macclesfield resident Roger Ingerson knew about the 190SL through a friend of the family, and he takes up the story: “Fortunately the car has been dry stored, despite a couple of moves since its decommissioning. The owner must have contemplated a respray because all of the external hardware – lights, bumpers, grille and hubcaps – had been removed. Shelving adjacent to the car contained everything that had been taken off, including the manifolding, carburettors and radiator from the engine bay. The body is in exceptional condition, with no rust or damage, and there was no evidence of occupation by rodents, with the soft-top wisely left erected. Amazingly the tyres still held air.

“There are several other new components – including a pair of carburettors – brought over from Germany by the owner’s family on a previous visit to Australia.”

The existence of the 190 was apparently known locally, but when the Mercedes fraternity became aware of a possible sale following the owner’s death, the car changed hands quickly, and it now resides on the east coast.