ULTRA-RARE 1 OF 1 BOSCHERT B300 GULLWING HEADS TO RM SOTHEBY'S AUCTION
We love it when auctioning houses like RM Sotheby’s announce automobile auctions in Germany because some interesting and admittedly weird cars come out of hiding. With Germany having the deepest automobile roots, it is a hub of the weird and wonderful, especially when it comes to the mid to late 80s and early 90s. This is when the best (strangest) conversions and technologies were added to normal cars, and when it comes to bodywork modifications the sky was the limit. Wings, fins and louvres were the order of the day, and two-tone paint schemes were par for the course. Some companies that carried out the weird and wonderful conversion have evolved into some of the most iconic in the motoring world today, but some fizzled out over time. One of these was Boschert, headed up by Hartmut Boschert, a Mercedes-Benz fanatic who had some interesting ideas when it came to design and modification. One of his ideas used a late 80s Mercedes-Benz 300 CE as a base, and he fiddled with the powerplant to bump up the power to be much better for the decently-sized Merc, but it was the bodywork that made this project stand out - and then some. Mercedes-Benz first released its iconic 300 SL Gullwing in 1954, and that’s the car that served as inspiration for the Boschert B300 Gullwing. Clearly a fan of this door style, the man created his own where Mercedes-Benz didn’t. He planned to build 300 of these cars, but only a small handful ever made it to production. This was the only one to receive the gullwing doors though, the others only had the engine, interior and exterior changes.
Boschert’s B300 was modified to wear the front end from an R129-generation SL, which actually works very well on the overall look. The car began life as a Mercedes-Benz 300 CE in Astral Silver over a black interior, but in 1990 the makeover saw the paint changed to Mercedes-Benz’s Bornite paint and the interior was changed to a much more 80s two-tone purple - the seats were also borrowed from the R129 SL. Major changes were carried out on the car’s structure saw the C-pillar being brought forward by a large 25 cm and the sills strengthened to be able to handle the weight of the massive 1.66 m wide gullwing doors. They were oversized to allow access to the rear seats too. To give the modified and heavier body a smooth drive, he made sure to increase power, which was done with a twin-turbo conversion. This raised the power from 185 hp to a much better 283 hp. This rare B300 has been owned by the current owner for 18 years, and it was meticulously maintained. In 2023 the car received €16,216 worth of repairs at CarSystems, €7,783 worth of paintwork from Lackprofis Kuennen, and €4,771 of leather repairs and recolouring by Auto Leder Toczek. The Boschert is also sold with various parts and accessories including the original wooden steering wheel, in-car phone, and car cover, in addition to period sales and development materials, brochures, periodicals, and VHS videotapes. The aftermarket gullwing Merc is expected to fetch as much as €300,000 - or around R6 050,000.
Take a look at the YouTube video that runs through the ins and outs and whys of this rather odd one-of-one late 80s Mercedes-Benz with a nice bump in power over OEM and an aftermarket gullwing door conversion. There' some weird stuff rolling around in Germany: Ultra-Rare Boschert B300 Showed Mercedes How A 1990s SL Gullwing Could Have Looked | just released
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News Rare One of one 1 of 1 Mercedes-Benz Germany Conversion Aftermarket Gullwing SXdrv Auction RM Sotheby's B300 Boschert