It's understood to have been driven by both five-time World Driving Champion Juan Manuel Fangio and the great Stirling Moss before it became the personal car of outspoken former Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett for 28 years.
Now, appropriately, Jeff's 'Benz is being sold at 'Jeff's Shed' - aka the Melbourne Exhibition Centre - in this year's Shannons Melbourne International Motor Show Auction on Monday March 10.
The Thistle Green Mercedes-Benz 450SEL 6.9 was the personal car of Lanes Motors Dealer Principal Gordon Newton when the 'Tribute to Fangio' motor race meeting was held at Melbourne's Sandown Raceway in 1978.
Mercedes-Benz Australia organised a special function for the Argentinean champion and his former Mercedes teammate Stirling Moss at Emu Bottom Homestead near Sunbury and media guests recall being taken for rapid rides around the nearby countryside in the car driven by both Fangio and Moss.
The 450SEL 6.9 was unquestionably the greatest four-door performance sedan of the late 1970s, with its 6834cc V8 developing 213kW and 550Nm of torque. Add ABS brakes and self-leveling hydro-pneumatic suspension and the 6.9 was not only fast, but handled and rode superbly.
Jeff Kennett purchased the car from Lanes the following year, 1979, when the odometer read 4,500km.
"As a young man I had always wanted to own a top of the range Mercedes-Benz," he said. "As I was then only a Liberal backbencher (the member for Burwood) and still running my own advertising business. I thought 'if I'm ever going to do it, this is the time'.
"It was a very powerful car and I thoroughly enjoyed driving it!".
Not long afterwards in 1981, Jeff Kennett became Minister for Housing, Immigration and Ethnic Affairs and was given an official car and driver, so the Mercedes-Benz was relegated to occasional weekend use.
However, around a decade later, he very publicly took the wheel of the car again in a role reversal to act as chauffeur at his driver's wedding. Then around two years ago, he played chauffeur in the car again for the marriage of his son Edward to his fiancé, Georgina.
Since finishing his parliamentary career in 1999, Jeff Kennett has switched his allegiance to German rival BMW and now has a range of their cars and a MINI in his garage as his vehicles of choice. With no space left for the 450SEL, he decided last year it had to go and sold it to a Mercedes-Benz enthusiast with less than 135,000km on the odometer.
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The car has since been repainted in its original Thistle Green, new windscreen and rubbers have been fitted and a mechanical service was carried out in February this year to bring it back to peak condition.
Costing twice the price of a standard 450 'S-Class' when new, the 450SEL 6.9 was built in tiny numbers - just 7,380 were made - and today is a sought-after and much-admired classic Mercedes-Benz.
John Frankenheimer's 1998 cult action thriller, Ronin, in which a 450SEL 6.9 was driven by Robert De Niro's character in the film's epic car chase, did the model's reputation no harm and further underpinned values.
Shannons expect Jeff's 'Benz to sell for $18,000-$26,000 at Jeff's Shed on March 10.
All 53 vehicle and 50 memorabilia lots in the Shannons Motor Show auction will be on free display to the public in the C oncourse area of the Melbourne Exhibition Centre throughout the Motor Show, from February 29 until the auction on March 10.
For media information and publication quality photos, please contact:
Michael Browning (03) 9879 9111 / 0418 324 328
For further auction information, contact:
Christophe or Greg on (03) 8543 2288 or 0413 567 308.
To view all auction lots visit www.shannons.com.au
