Hear This 1971 Mercedes-Benz 300SEL Roar with a Supercharged V-8

Yeah, Jonathan Ward will get a lot of ink, video perspectives, and time with Jay Leno. Why? As a result of his store, Icon, helps to keep generating nasty such things as this: a 1971 Mercedes-Benz 300SEL powered via a GM LS9 supercharged 6.2-liter V-8. The LS9 is the engine put in within the 2009 Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 and is rated at 638 horsepower within the GM Efficiency Portions catalog as a crated unit. The engine is sponsored via a massaged GM 4L85E four-speed automated transmission. The auto will make its debut on the SEMA display in Las Vegas this week.

Here is a clip of this warped transatlantic conglomeration thru a close-by tunnel and alongside a couple of roads. It does not sound similar to an previous Mercedes.

Ward has produced this factor as a part of his “Derelict” line of customs that keeps the weathered look of older cars whilst stuffing them filled with trendy efficiency items and including the posh plucks to head with their $450,000 (to start out) worth tags.

Even if the W108 and W109 collection of enormous Mercedes sedans (constructed between 1965 and 1972) are famend as the bottom for the epic 300SEL 6.3, it isn’t a construction with the energy to take care of this a lot thump. In any case, the 6.3’s M100 large 6.3-liter V-8 used to be most effective rated at 247 horsepower when the automobile went on sale for 1968. So the LS9 has it beat via virtually 400 horsey powers.

So, as Icon does with many Derelicts, it’s been fitted with a customized ladder body produced via Artwork Morrison Enterprises in Fife, Washington, this is fitted with an all-independent suspension gadget, rack-and-pinion steerage, large Brembo brakes, and lots of dear stainless-steel fittings. The brand new body intended re-engineering all of the construction of the car, in the beginning constructed as a unibody, together with a brand new flooring.

Most likely the tastiest component of the automobile’s look is the one-piece billet aluminum wheels fitted with tires that squeeze beneath the fenders virtually erotically. Yeah, that is proper, erotically.

Ward is understood for his obsessive consideration to intricate main points, and the 300SEL is full of them. New wooden trim, some form of tremendous stealthy mega-sound gadget, heated this, ventilated that, it is all in moderation right here and in moderation hidden.

How briskly is that this factor? Let’s move to Jonathan Ward’s store in verdant Chatsworth, California, and in finding out. Quickly.