I've come across an interesting '75 350 Euro that appears to be pretty low mileage. I haven't talked to the owner or driven it yet, so I thought I'd try to get some pointers from someone knowledgeable about this car before I looked at it in detail. Its parked on consignment at a local tuneup/detail shop. The guy who runs the shop said the owner had it in storage for the last 2 years. The owner had him shake the car out so he could put it up for sale, and it supposedly runs good and the owner is apparently eager to sell. The car's odometer shows 91K. It is Navy over Navy, 4 speed manual, roll up windows, AC, has the hard top, and looks in what I would call good to excellent shape for a car of that year. It has the original Euro headlights and bumpers. The interior shows no major problems with tears but is slightly sun faded with some age checking on the Tex interior.

Worrisome are five or six large, about the size of a nickle, rust bubbles under the paint, right around the "350 SL" marque on the rear deck lid, and some very slight rust, about the size of a quarter, showing in the lower corners of the rear wheel wells. Otherwise the body looks in good shape, with three bad parking lot dings in the doors being the biggest body problems. I would guess the car has been repainted, probably some years back, and the paint job is ok but not what I would call Mercedes quality. I know enough about the body work on these cars to know I am probably looking at about 2K to restore the body to a Mercedes-like finish.

I've owned 280 series cars my whole life, and know little about the 350s, let alone the early 107s. Is this model prone to rust problems - am I seeing the tip of a bad ice berg here, or would what I observed so far, be typical for a car like this? What would be a ball park valuation on the car? Is there anything special about this particular car that would make this car worth having as a resto project? What specific problems should I look for on this model? If I bought it for the purpose of reselling, does this particular model have a following or would I have to look at for months and months?

Thanks in advance
Kirk
83 280 SL Euro Astral Silver creampuff
84 Porsche 944