A brilliantly beautiful W140 Mercedes-Benz S600 SEL sedan, seen on a car market in east Beijing in 2017. The most striking element of the big Mercedes was its light green color, a very unusual shade for the S-Class. It also had very old black 京A·01688 license plates.
The W140 Mercedes-Benz S-Class was made from 1991 until 1998 with a facelift in 1996. Our green car is a pre-facelift example. The S600 model was powered by a massive 6.0 liter ‘M120′ V12 with an output of 402hp and 580nm, good for a 240 km/h top speed. Gearbox was a 4-speed or 5-speed automatic, depending on model year.The ‘SEL’ was the long-wheelbase version.
The W140 was the first S-class that Mercedes-Benz officially sold in China. That was not in the modern way of selling, with a larger dealer network and such. It was more like batch sales directly to large customers, mostly to the government, big state owned companies and to expensive hotels, which were usually state-owned as well. Mercedes-Benz worked with a single office in Beijing and several semi-official repair shops for maintenance.
However, this particular car was not one of those, as it had a black license plate. The famous black license plates were issued to foreign owned companies from the 1980’s to the mid 00’s. These companies could buy a car locally, or import one. There were no limits on the number of cars, or on price, or engine type. The numbering started at 京A·00001, and then up. So the lower the number the older the car. Any black plate beginning with 京A·0 or 京A·1 is considered ultra rare. I know, I had one too!
In the old days black-plated cars had some privileges comparable to diplomatic cars; no police officer would dare to stop them and they could basically park wherever they wanted without fear of a fine. Nowadays, a black-plated car is counted just like all the others. The government does not issue new black plates anymore but those who have one can keep it until eternity. Other Chinese cities, including Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Chengdu, had similar black plate license plate programs.
Bizarrely, the interior of the green S600 was entirely green too! There are super soft green leather seats, there is green trim on the doors, and more green trim on the dashboard. It seemed custom-made. The first owner of this car must have paid a lot of money to create this ultra special car. The shoe-shaped red thing in the air vents is an old-school mobile phone holder.
The green leather and trim contrasted nicely with the dark brown wood. The text on the bottom of the gear lever area is in English, so this car was most likely originally delivered to an English-speaking country. The audio system came with a 10-CD changer, and each disc had its own button. The CD-box sits in the trunk.
The rear bench was in green leather as well. The SEL had a 3.139 millimeter wheelbase, and it shows. There is an enormous amount of space for the legs, and the floor is surprisingly flat for a rear-wheel drive car.
The pre-facelift W140 was equipped with rear-parking markers, also known as guide rods. These metal pins popped up from the side of the trunk lid when the car was in reverse, giving the driver a marker for steering the car. The system was unique for Mercedes-Benz and only fitted on the early W140’s. The facelifted car got a sonar-based reverse warning system.
Note the Rolls-Royce inside the shop. Later on I saw it outside and I took a lot of photos. That’s for another post. The shop always had very cool cars, mainly Mercedes sedans. Unlike most car shops in China they didn’t really like me walking around the place, so many a times I had to work fast. Fortunately, on the day that I met this brilliant green 600 SEL, they just let me be.