I love searching through auction listings online, but ideally I would rather stumble upon an unadvertised estate sale with rows of classics up for grabs (for a screaming bargain, of course!) I’m not sure if that’s what occurred for the seller of this and several other vintage Mercedes-Benz SLs, but it sounds like he scored quite a haul of these desirable soft-tops, even if they need a lot of work. Find out more here on eBay (and check out some great pictures!) from the seller located in Daytona Beach, Florida.

Imagine getting a call that your buddy has discovered a long-vacant house that is chock full of antiques and other collectibles. The auction company is coming tomorrow, and everything must go so the property can be made sale-ready. You get there – some china, old Coke bottles, handmade furniture, and a smattering of oil paintings. Then you wander around to the rear of the building, where a single car garage opens up to an expanse of a dimly-lit finished basement packed with project cars, unknown to everyone but the house’s former inhabitant.

While it hasn’t happened yet, I’m sure many of you will agree that finding a barn full of Benzes is one of the better outcomes of the dream scenario I outlined above. The seller notes that he acquired this 280SL and several other classic Mercedes from an estate sale in Georgia. The pictures in the seller’s Picasa gallery indicate he made use of a large car hauler to bring his winnings home, which includes at least two other SLs – but that’s just what he has for sale right now. What else did the seller free from the basement of this mysterious Georgia estate?

This 1970 280SL will need a lot of work to bring it back to investment-grade quality. The interior is shot, the body has serious surface rust, and the chassis looks risky at best. But, with the bigger motor and a hard-top included, it’d be a rewarding car to restore to daily-driver status. I’d like to see some European headlights swapped in, along with the slimmer euro-market bumpers. Be sure to take a look at the cars when they were first discovered in the dank musty basement – makes you wonder what else might be lurking behind closed doors!