Is this really factory?
 

I saw this on ebay and in all my years looking at our favorite brand I never knew suede was an option - really? It looks interesting...

Mercedes Benz 500 Series Sec | eBay

So far as I am aware they only came in leather or velour but Jim B will be able to shed more light on this.

Short answer: no.

The 560SEC came with velour interior, or leather. Velour was much more rare and I have personally seen very few.

That is a custom hack job. I can't understand spending the money to have an upholstery shop do the interior, but leave out the headliner and let it sag. It appears the carpets too have been replaced or dyed, the center console carpet is faded to that green from being in the sun. So much for being kept in a garage. :D

Velour was more popular on Euro cars. My dad had a 380 SE with light gray velour. Nice care.

If you look at this SEC, someone spent a pretty penny on it. The seats look factory. Straight seams, no excess material or bunching, The cushion lines are straight and neat. The head rest has no wrinkles. The stitching is very nice. This does not look like a cheap job. I wonder how it would look if the suede was rubbed down in the same direction how it would look. I have always liked the feel of suede.

I agree that they should/need to do something with the head liner. Not sure about the green carpet in the center console but I think it it were out in the sun the dash would not look as good as it does. The job does appear to be a bit older as the side bolster on the driver seat is showing quite a bit of wear.

My Cabernet Red 380SE had Velour too. True Euro car too. I loved it and shouldn't have sold it after the labor I put into head work, suspension etc.

I will give him it's nice work on the seats, but it just isn't original. That's the part that pisses me off. Above premium for a modified car? Not that easy to source another good interior. I'm highly critical and a purist, so to some this isn't probably a big deal.

It is also possible that the car was garage kept, but the center console carpet was stained from a beverage and it was replaced with a junkyard carpet or the like. The folks who aren't the brightest have used the center console to drive with their coffee in and stained it plenty of times before.

Either way, I'd look it over with a fine tooth comb and pick every flaw I could find. $19K is too much for any SEC at the time.

Im a semi-purist (sort a lie being 'kind of pregnant'):) I dont want a chevy in engine in my MB but if the alterations suit my taste I'm good with it. We had to replace the head liner on the E300. Went with imitation alcantara. Personally I thin it looks better than factory. Looks very elegant now. Just my personal taste though and I know everyone is different.

I did not even see the price. For $19k I want the car to be damn near perfect. Head liner is crap. The driver seat bolster seemed to have more than 60K in miles on it but that could have been the angle on it. Paint looked good from what I could see in the photos.

....Or perhaps the odometer is not accurate. :confused: Look carefully at the color of the speedo needle. Yellow. Look at the others. Orange. Unless he has service records to verify the mileage, I'm skeptical.

My odometer failed about six years ago. I took it to an indy for a change. My speedo needle now looks exactly like the one in the ad.- Yellow. My left guage was swapped out too, although nothing was broken. My tach and clock needles are like the one in the ad- orange. (& presumably original.)
Fortunately, I had a recent service two weeks before the failure and the dates between service and replacement are only 3-4 weeks or so. I figure it's about 200 miles of missing miles between failure & replacement.

So, with that and the driver's seat back wear as you mention, yes, I'm skeptical.
(I don't recall if the ad mentions complete service records or not.)

W/C126's came with leather, MB Tex or velour. I had all three, velour is awesome and was a no cost option almost no one in the US got.

The interior on that car is either aftermarket or if you can run the cars vin might have been custom ordered. MB did special order stuff for very good customers, some research would be required. If you pull the rear seats you should see tags if they are from MB.

That SEC doesn't smell right to me, I'd have to look at it in person to see how nice or not it really is. It might be a decent example but not for $19k. For that kind of money at least replace the headliner and fix the dent in the door.

Whoever did the seats did a decent job. Most reupholstered MB's I have seen look like crap because people don't want to pay for a MB level job.

Thanks for the information, I figured it was not factory. Btw, I am not considering purchasing this cars, I just came across it while surfing for something I might be really interested in and wondered what you guys thought...

Mark

Awesome, a $2,000 car for $19k. They will be sitting on that for a very long time. In 50 years it still won't be worth that amount.

I miss that SDL. I should have sold the cabrio over the boat

I passed up a $700.00 SDL. The car had good paint, but the guy didn't think it was worth anything because the Maroon leather was smoked from dogs riding around in it. It wasn't TEX so you can imagine. I'm still kicking myself for not buying it when I had the chance. 200K miles on the #14. Those heads aren't as bad as they are painted out to be when it isn't overheated. At least my buddy got the car though.