This Sbarro-Modified S-Class Coupe Is the Most Eighties Car Ever

Brett Berk, Contributor for Road and Track Posted on May 20, 2020

And it's got a "Raddest in Show" trophy from Radwood to prove it.

courtesy the barn miami
COURTESY: CHRIS MACCOY

The C126-generation Mercedes S-Class Coupe of the 1980s is one of designer Bruno Sacco’s undisputed masterpieces, a perfectly proportioned pillar-less coupe that is equal parts elegance, exclusivity, and brash menace. But when it was new, a dozen or so individuals felt that this design lacked a certain quality—specifically, the quality of looking like a flying electric Braun razor.

At great cost—around $70,000 in 1987, nearly doubling the price of the Benz—they sent their cars to the outré Swiss customization shop owned by and named for Franco Sbarro, where the coupes were stripped down and outfitted with craftmatically-adjustable Recaro bucket seats, flush front and rear bumper panels, ribbed ground effects, streamlined disc wheels, a wide-body rear massive enough to cover the Countach LP5000 QV-spec 345-35R15 Pirelli P7s, gullwing doors, and, most notably, a front-end treatment that makes the car look like it's wearing a pair of body-colored Eighties Shutter Shades.

courtesy the barn miami
COURTESY: THE BARN MIAMI

Only 14 of these vehicles were made. Most of them were shipped to the Middle East. But at least one was sent to Colombia, a 1987 model painted the pearlescent white of that country’s most famous Me Decade export. "There’s this expectation about who owned it," jokes Gaston Rossato, the proprietor of The Barn Miami—a Florida-based broker of collectible vehicles—who found the car through a local associate. "We just have to assume. But I couldn’t give you names, unfortunately. Because I don’t know."

The car was in remarkably original condition, perhaps put into storage around the same time as its owner? Rossato had it inspected, bought it, and transported it to his shop. "We went through the car mechanically—basic change of fluids, replaced the battery, put fresh fuel in the system—and the car started right up," he says. "In fact, incredibly, we didn’t replace the tires. Although it would need tire replacement, we wanted to keep that, to show the originality of the car. They’re the original tires from the Eighties. They’re completely dry rotted, but they still roll."

courtesy the barn miami
COURTESY: THE BARN MIAMI

Rossato sold the car almost as soon as he posted it to Instagram. "I got this DM from a gentleman in Saudi Arabia ... What are you asking for the car?" Rossato says. "I gave him the price, and he dragged his feet a little bit, and then a few hours later, my DM was blowing up from this guy: I want the car, I need the car, the car is mine, let’s do the deal, send me over the paperwork, what do you need from me?" Rossato says he's used to this kind of behavior, and cautious of it. But he sent a purchase order, and sure enough, two days later, the money was in his bank account, and it was the full asking price: $90,000, which seems like kind of a deal for a low-mileage C126 in this market.

CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Brett Berk M.S.
<  Back to Blog