EU Market Find: Cypress Green Mercedes 280 CE Coupe with Period Lorinser and Zender Upgrades

What: 1978 Mercedes-Benz 280 CE Coupe
Color: Cypress Green (zypressengrün; metallic UNI; 876; Mercedes-Benz)
Chassis Number: N/A
Mileage: 222,000 km, 137,944 miles
Price at Time of this Writing: €18,990
CarFax: N/A
Window Sticker: N/A
Location: Autozentrum Frankenthal, Frankenthal, Germany
Dealer listing: Link

Why we love it:

Nowadays, the W123-generation Mercedes Benz 280 CE is a pretty rare thing. Built in a day when nomenclature and badging actually stood for something, the 280 CE is an E-class Coupe (a.k.a. “CE”) with a 2.8-liter V6 (i.e. 280).

This one is Cypress Green metallic, making it a rare spec but neither a custom build from the factory nor a special limited edition factory model. Hawk-eyed viewers of our “tailored driver” qualification rules may call foul here as a result, but we’re also keen on occasionally listing the very tasteful and/or very rare specifications that may have been off the factory standard option list, but are nevertheless still both rare and sought-after. We think this car qualifies.

In the tailored car collector space, sometimes points are also deducted for modifications. Here again, we tend to give leeway for modifications from iconic aftermarket brands that are period correct. In this case, that includes wheels from longtime Mercedes tuning house Lorinser, a wooden steering wheel from Raid and color-matched bumper covers / body kit from 80s European car accessories house Zender. While these changes may boot this car out of a hallowed space at a Mercedes-Benz factory museum, we suspect they’d definitely earn you street credit at the local cars and coffee.

This is one of our Euro market finds, so the usual caveats apply for our primarily North American readership. For Europe and other markets, we focus on cars older than 25 years, meaning a relatively easy import into the USA. This is often done by working with firms such as our friends at Orchid Euro, you can have the car purchased, transported to port, shipped to America and cleared through customs for clients seeking this sort of service.