Big Block-Powered Mercedes SL Dominates Pro Street
This $12,000 custom Benz is designed to burn up the autobahn…one quarter mile at a time.
Back in the 1980s, the Pro Street trend was in full swing in America. Built to resemble NHRA Pro Stock drag racers, Pro Street cars could drive to the strip, crack off a few impressive quarter-mile passes, and drive home.
Unlike their pure-race car cousins, most Pro Street cars maintained a full interior, with at least some of the creature comforts of your standard contemporary road car. Of course, that doesn’t mean Pro Street cars were ideal for daily driver duty — far from it. With narrow pizza cutters up front and mega-wide rear tires out back, in addition to drag-race specific suspension geometry, these cars could be a real handful on the street.
Still, the entire point of a Pro Street car was to be a race car with a license plate, and that aesthetic appealed to thousands of hot rodders across the country. Occasionally, these customs survive to the present day, and some of them — like this 1972 Mercedes-Benz SL we found for sale on Craigslist for $12,000 — still turn heads.
While most Pro Street cars were modified American classics like Camaros, Chevelles, Bel Airs, and even Corvettes, it’s comparatively rare to see European cars with the Pro Street treatment. This SL’s original engine was swapped for a massive 427 cubic inch Big Block Chevy V8. Instead of a Powerglide two-speed automatic, this build uses a six-speed Tremec transmission, which should make this beast quite a bit more fun than your average Pro Street build.
While most Pro Street cars were modified American classics like Camaros, Chevelles & even Corvettes, it’s rare to see European cars with the Pro Street treatment.
A custom front suspension based on a Ford Mustang II design with tubular control arms and drop spindles is used up front. In the rear you’ll find a narrowed Ford 9″ rear axle with a four-link setup and coil-over shocks. With disc brakes all around, this thing should stop as well as it starts.
While no quarter mile times are listed, we expect this big block Benz to run somewhere in the 10-second range. Fast with class — that sounds like a winning combo to us!
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