This 1967 Mercedes Benz 230S “Fintail” sedan has been the tried-and-true BaT event car since we purchased it 3 years ago. The factory floor-shifted 4-speed and preserved condition are why we bought it, and the modifications we have performed have taken us to the finish line without fail on the California Melee, the Snowball Rally, and the Northwest Classic Rally. Not many people put money into fintails, and those who do tend to go for grandma-spec originals on 13″ wheels. This car has almost as many paint imperfections as miles, but has covered blacktop and dirt roads all over California and Oregon and looks the right amount of tough. We are sad to see it go, but our next rally build needs this to find a new owner before it can become a reality.

We bought this car in 2011 from a dentist in who kept it at his Michigan boathouse and rarely drove it for a decade. The car was totally stock, and has some of the original green paint remaining. These cars all came with skinny 13″ wheels and most were automatics, neither of which appeal to us. We immediately sourced 14″ steel wheels from the later W108 sedan (circa 1968), then powder coated them black and added new Michelins. Our goal was to have the car ready for the 2011 California Melee in the period style of the factory rally that did well at Monte Carlo, Acropolis, and Argentina. The car needed tuning after sitting and shipping, but the factory Solexes were not able to recover from age, so we added a dual Weber set-up from Pierce Manifold.

The interior is shown below and remains totally original and unchanged from the factory, right down the the snap-in oatmeal floor carpets, under-dash insulated fiberboard, and cognac colored leather interior. The driver and passenger seat upholstery has degraded under our use, but everything else has remained very clean. Even the rear seat top that is always sun baked it in good shape in this car. The dash is great but the trip-meter has never turned and the Kienzle/VDO clock runs a bit slow.

Half the reason we bought the car was for the excuse to also get the Bosch vertical Euro-spec headlights, which we sourced off of eBay for about $750. The giant Cibie driving lamps came from eBay France and the center Marchal 762 was left over from a previous project. The exhaust was a mess but we were out of time, so we wrapped and hung it the best we could and after a wash, the car was ready for its reveal at the Melee.

The video below shows what full throttle on loose terrain looks like:

After some challenging use over 800 miles, dirt roads, and 100 degree temps, the car completed the event but was very clear that it wanted better brakes, exhaust, and suspension for the next outing. That winter we sourced a W108 disk brake rear end to swap in place of the factory drum unit. We went all through the rear suspension bushings and added new Bilsteins. We sourced a full stainless exhaust system from the cast manifolds rearward from Time Valve in Florida. At our request they upped the spec to the 300SE diameter tubing and retained the single outlet. We also had the brake booster rebuilt.

Next up was the 2012 Snowball Rally circumnavigating Lake Tahoe. The Snowball was a great event and the car was ready. We had no trouble whatsoever. The car even did great at altitude. When we returned home, we had a few months until our next event so we decided to tackle some of the rust on the car that had been bothering us. These cars tend to rust in the forward rockers, the trunk sides behind the wheels, and the front radiator/bumper support channel. Our front channel was toast, so we ordered the proper parts at our Mercedes dealer, and went to town. The full process in photos is in the gallery at bottom.

Our next event was the 2012 Monte Shelton Northwest Classic Rally. We competed in the event for two long days and drove the car home for 11 hours back to San Francisco. The car performed perfectly, but our result was sub-par because we apparently were having too much fun shooting photos and stopping in the wrong places. Even so, the car was a hit with the Oregon crowd. After that, we dove headlong into the Corvette restoration, so this car has since been a driver, family hauler, and cruiser.

Below are the links to our Event Coverage stories where we used this Mercedes:

Since then the car has been used consistently and stored indoors. The car was also featured prominently in the BaT Petrolicious video shown here:

We love this car and would love to keep it forever, but it is our hope that someone will love driving it as much as we have. It is very cool to drive an unpretentious classic Mercedes.

This car is being sold by Bring a Trailer Inc., a licensed, bonded, and insured California dealer. Sales tax and registration fees are due upon delivery for California buyers. We think that charging customers the allowable $80 documentation fee is lame, and so we won’t be doing that.