I Love This Mercedes-Benz S-Class El Camino So Much

The Mercedes-Benz S-Class is, by all accounts, a very good car. It's not a perfect car, though, because as we all know there's only one way to build a perfect car: Lop off the rear roof and give it the El Camino treatment. It seems some enterprising engineer has taken up the challenge of perfection, because Facebook Marketplace has now given me what may be the greatest car ever made. This 1981 Mercedes-Benz 280SE ute trades its rear seats for a bed in a build so clean it almost looks factory. Almost.

This Benz isn't the first German luxury car to get the ute treatment. BMW has built a couple M3s with beds, but those always took a more performance-oriented bent than the S-Class. This W126 is no nimble performer or track-day toy, but a stately gentleman's car. Provided said stately gentleman needs to go to Home Depot for some lumber or something. 

Jalopnik's resident Mercedes enthusiast Daniel Golson tells me that these headlights are ugly U.S.-spec units, but I don't care — I am and have always been a sucker for yellow fog lights, and those little vertical accents are perfect. Those lights, the wheels and whitewall tires, the chrome fender flares; every detail on this car just stands to emphasize how luxurious it is. And then you look at the back, and it's simply not there. There's never been a more chiaroscuro vehicle, and there never will be. 

The seller of this $11,500 project isn't its builder, and only claims that it ran at some point under his ownership but it may no longer fire up. It also might, though, given the seller hasn't touched it since he got its diesel engine running. How hard could it be to get a compression-ignition mill back up and running, though? Just a little bit of elbow grease, and you could have yourself a genuine luxury ute — something no one else can claim. If you buy this, please send me photos. I need to know it went to a good home. I love it so much.