Description
Vehicle Overview
Our SEC is a “second series” 500SEC, produced after the 1986 range refresh and redesign. In fact it was first registered in the UK in February 1990, pretty close to the end of the 126 model's production run.
It's had an interesting history, with the documentation folder sporting an undated Belgian “Gelijkvormigheidsattest” certificate that confirms the car was at one point registered in the country as well as several receipts from a location in south-east Spain that suggest it's spent a while overseas.
Dry-stored from around 2010 until 2022, the car was recently picked up from a deceased estate sale and recommissioned for road use, including a brake overhaul, and is covered by a current MoT.
The car was part of a fleet of vehicles – stored in a spacious industrial unit - that had become surplus to requirements due to the owner's move abroad, giving a chance for a new owner to grab this chic classic.
Exterior
Coming in at almost five metres long, the C126 is a whole lot of car, and it's pretty easy to make it look less than ideal with the wrong colour – Mercedes offered it in a lot of shades in the lawless 1990s. Fortunately, this vehicle comes in one of the best: Almandinrot (Garnet Red).
As you might expect from a car that's had a full respray, it's in good condition throughout, with the majority of the enormous panels showing nothing but an almost mirror-finish, deep red. There's no trace of the issues you might expect on a car of this type and size, with the front-end free of stone chips and the wheel arches about as clean as you could hope. The respire is by no means factory fresh but makes the car look clean and tidy and shiny.
The vehicle lighting is all present, correct, and operational, with no cracks in the lenses or any fogging.
All four of the manhole-cover wheels – 15-inch items – are present, and appear to be undamaged.
Interior:-
The interior of the SEC is an astounding place; we can only imagine what the experience must have been like when brand new in 1990.
There's four – just four – extremely generous seats, finished in the cream leather which dominates the cabin. Like the outside, these have been restored through connolisation and present with no marks, snags, or tears anywhere save for a scuff on the outside of the rear of the front passenger seat. Unlike so many modern four-seat coupes, the rears are perfectly acceptable even for adult occupants.
The cream theme continues around the door cards and rear inserts, with pleated leather inlays, and is also in excellent condition. On the doors this gives way to some wood inserts which very much look to have stood the test of time without any discolouration.
A thick beige carpet clads the lower sections, and this is also in great condition throughout with mats over mats protecting much of it from any damage. There's an area behind the front passenger seat where there's some darker brown staining of unknown origin, and the passenger side of the centre stack has four screws through it which we'd guess is a remnant from a late-90s mobile phone mount.
There's more pale colours up high on the roof, and this is also in mainly good condition. You'll find an area where the plastic trim above the rear seats is a little warped and the roof lining behind it is sagging slightly, but it's not profound.
All of the vehicle electronics operate and display as they ought, including the seat electrics and heaters, moonroof operation (tilt and slide), and automatic seat belt “presenter” on both sides. There's a modern-but-retro stereo Blaupunkt head unit offering mobile phone connectivity, although the car also has an original head unit available too.
Mechanical:-
As a 500SEC, this model bears the five-litre version of the M117 V8 – also used by Mercedes, in a tweaked and twin-turbo form in its sports car racing program – good for 248hp on these later models with the additional catalytic convertors.
Paired to a four-speed automatic gearbox, with selectable Standard and Economy shift modes, that's enough to see the big SEC hit 60mph in eight seconds, a little behind the 560 but with around 10% better fuel economy.
Although we only experienced at at low speeds, there were no noises coming from the engine – except the good, eight-cylinder ones – or gearbox when manoeuvring. The engine idles, revs, and returns without issue, smoking (though a lot of condensation on the very cold day we filmed!), or smells
There seemed to be no issues with the suspension or the brakes, the latter of which was also recently overhauled with new discs and pads.
Scanning the underside reveals nothing of any concern either. There's some areas of exposed components where there's surface rusting, and a patch of the chassis rail towards the rear where paint has flaked off, but the floorpan is free of issues front to back. That's probably a testament to its time spent overseas and in dry storage. Additionally we could find no leaks or drips from any components.
There's quite a bit of detail with the car, showing a lot of care across its five owners to date.
As noted on the V5C, the SEC has been registered overseas at some point, with a “Certificate of Conformity” from Mercedes-Benz Belgium as required to register the car in that country. A handful of consecutive bills from a garage in Moreira, near Alicante, as well as an AC refrigerant conversion notice in the engine bay in Spanish, also suggest that the car was used extensively in Spain in 2004-2005.
However it was first registered in the UK in 1990 – the pre-delivery inspection and 1000km inspection stamps in the service book are both marked for Mercedes-Benz Cheltenham – and is once again a UK-registered car, so there's no paperwork hurdles here.
That service book is stamped up to 2009, with a raft of MoTs confirming the mileage and running comprehensively from 1994 to 2011, at around which time it was placed in dry storage until picked up and recommissioned by the current owner.
Having covered a little over 90, 000 miles before it went into storage, the SEC is still showing a similar figure now – equating to less than 3, 000 miles a year. It's covered by a current MoT until July 2024.
