This One-Off '80s Mercedes Gullwing Looks Like a Fever Dream Made Real
What in the World is a Boschert?
If you take a look at the European tuning scene in the '80s, there was definitely no shortage of outrageous, expensive, and unashamedly polarizing custom jobs. Call it imaginative, expressive, or straight-up tacky, those cars perfectly captured the excesses enjoyed by the rich during that decade.
One man wanted to try his luck in that scene, and his name is Hartmut Boschert. In essence, he drummed up the idea of creating a modern (for the '80s) interpretation of the classic Mercedes-Benz 300 SL, otherwise known as the Gullwing. From there, he set out to build it for real, and the result is the car you see here now, the Boschert B300.
The Build
Mind you, the Boschert B300 wasn't the only gullwinged aftermarket Mercedes built during that era. Styling-Garage released a car called the 500SGS Gullwing, based on the C126 S-Class. Not wanting to do the exact same thing, Boschert used a Mercedes C124 as his basis, a 300 CE to be exact.
To say the modifications were extensive would be an understatement. The entire bodywork of the 300 CE was altered with pillars moved, bits of the front and rear trimmed, and sills that had to be heavily reinforced to accommodate those long 65-inch-long gullwing doors. A section of the roof had to be cut off, hence the need for extra chassis bracing so that it would not have the structural rigidity of an overcooked linguini.
Now, the front end appears to have come straight off an R129 SL, but it's far more than that. The entire front end had to be re-engineered to achieve the look, and even then, the panels fitted had to be fabricated. As for the interior, it should look familiar to any W124 owner, past or present, but the trims used are bespoke, and the seats were lifted from an R129 SL. The result? We might get some opinions on our take, but it looks clean, well-built, and possibly factory.
More Grunt
Under the hood of the Boschert B300 is the M103 inline-six engine found in various 124 models. Available in either 2.6 or 3.0-liter forms, the latter version made 187 hp. Those were impressive figures for the day, but the Boschert strapped two turbos on it to bump power up to 283 hp. It retained its five-speed manual transmission.
Admittedly, we were expecting a little bit more given the twin-turbo arrangement, and those weren't entirely wild numbers for performance cars even back then. Still, an improvement of nearly 100 hp is commendable. Perhaps Boschert was aiming for a relaxed and understressed tune rather than extracting every ounce of horsepower at the expense of reliability.
A True One-Off
The car made its world premiere at the 1989 Frankfurt Motor Show, first shown in silver with a black interior. It was advertised at 186,000 Deutsche Marks, about the price of two 300 CEs, with some change left over for a slightly used 190E. Boschert planned to build 300 of these cars, but ultimately fell flat. Just 11 were made, and the 10 didn't get those dramatic-looking doors. Also, this very car was the only one personally built by its creator.
That makes this car a true one-of-one build. In 1990, the car was repainted in Bornite and gained that two-tone purple interior. After it toured the German auto show scene, it eventually ended up in private hands. It was sold off to its second owner, who kept it for 18 years from 2005 to 2023. The car was then auctioned off and sold for €455,000, or a little over $490,000 based on 2023 exchange rates. That's about $530,000 in today's money.
It's a huge amount of money, but one can't put a price tag on this level of exclusivity. Not only that, whoever bought it now literally owns a piece of awesomely obscure history.
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This story was originally published April 18, 2026 at 5:30 PM.