An SL Survivor Story

This 1970 Light Ivory 280SL 4 speed was a true barn find!

Rediscovered in my neighbor’s garage early last year after sitting untouched for 35 years, it has been preserved as a Survivor in all of its original glory and mechanically repaired to perform like it just came off the assembly line. 

My next door neighbor Bob purchased it new in 1970 at RBM of Atlanta for $8,000. He drove it every day for 18 years and 81,616 miles, until it broke down in 1987.

In November of 2021, Bob unfortunately passed away. In May of 2022, his widow  and I were walking and I first heard about how her garage housed not one, but three 3 classic cars: a 1959 Mercedes-Benz 220S Ponton, a 1964 Austin-Healey 3000 Mark iii and this 1970 Mercedes-Benz 280SL. She was kind enough to sell it to me shortly after our conversation. 

Covered in three and a half decades of dirt, a squirrel's nest under the hood, and a filthy, moldy interior, here was a barn find for the ages. It wasn't pristine under all that grime, but Atlanta weather had left it without structural rust and the engine was not locked up.

With my mechanic Ron McLuhan at Specialty Repair in Alpharetta, we began to learn its many mysteries. What had caused the breakdown and why had it been left garaged for 35 years? See nearby posters for the answers.

And so began a classic car preservation adventure of a lifetime. Today, she’s back on the road…a dependable daily driver and a head turner wherever I go!