1960 | Mercedes-Benz 190 SL

At Hilton & Moss, it is our pleasure to be handling the sale of this beautiful and rare Mercedes-Benz 190SL RHD.

The 190SL or ‘W121’ model range was manufactured between 1955 and 1963. With over 25,000 cars sold it was tremendously popular, offering an alternative and more affordable option to the 300SL ‘W198’. The 190SL still retained the same luxurious styling and proven high end German build quality and received at its time of launch, an all new inline four SOHC engine.

Out of the approximate 25,800 cars manufactured it is believed that 562 RHD vehicles ever left the Stuttgart factory, with even fewer destined for the UK market.

As the UK’s leading Mercedes-Benz classic restorer we are well versed in the costs of restoring a 190SL to the very highest level without compromise which in some cases can cost in excess of the cars value. This makes finding the perfect 190SL a hard task, with many receiving lower end less specialised restorations over their lifetimes before these cars held the value they do now.

This particular 190SL is a fantastic example, first registered in May 1960 and is a genuine UK home market RHD example. As it sits today the car is finished in a very charming and classic colour way DB180G Metallic Silver with 1079 Red leather interior. The data card however confirms the car left the factory in DB166 Blue grey with a (955) grey MB-Tex interior. The data card further confirms that this is a ‘matching numbers’ example of engine, gearbox, chassis and body number. The car is still complete with a late factory ‘wrap around window’ hard top that will be included with the car upon sale, finished in solid black.

At Hilton & Moss we specialist in the classic Mercedes-Benz marque and pride ourselves in looking after the rare and special variants. This particular RHD 190SL is car we have known and looked after for many years after selling it to the last keeper in 2017. Prior to, and during this period, we have completed a vast amount of specialist restoration work on the car including most notably:

- A full strip down of the vehicle including subframes and engine removal
- Full respray of the interior cockpit, engine bay and boot, inner boot lid and inner bonnet using the correct MB methods and materials
- Full strip, re-prime and respray of the full exterior of the car using the highest quality materials in DB180G metallic silver.
- Brand new soft top roof
- Wheel refurbishment
- Full reassembly with new parts where required
- Subtle radio and speaker upgrade

Within this vast restoration work fixings, perishables and chromes were renewed during the process and before the refitting of the car to ensure the very best finish was met.

The car retains a detailed history file documenting all of the work completed by our restoration team alongside a great number of documents pre-dating our time with the vehicle. Most notably the work prior to our time with the car includes a full engine & gearbox rebuild and a specialist period correct interior retrim.

The beautiful 190SL is marketed at a very appealing price, as building a car of this quality would cost far in excess of the asking price if a suitable rare RHD car could be sourced.

As with all of our carefully curated sales vehicles this 190SL has been through our detailed pre-sale inspection and preparation process. After little use in recent years our team completed the following work:

- Detailed inspection and a full nut and bolt check
- H&M RHD clutch mechanism upgrade
- Rebuilt dynamo
- Rebuilt wiper motor
- Handbrake adjustment
- Tune up and carburetor adjustments
- A full set of brand new Michelin classic tyres (x5)

This is a great opportunity to a fabulously kept and restored, rare RHD Mercedes-Benz 190SL.