Just like the Bluebird we saw a couple days ago, we’re going against type here and checking out a Tokyo find that is not the traditional trailer queen, to say the least. But it is something left field. Emphasis on the word “field.” It’s massive. It’s rare. It’s overtaken by grass! What kind of a world are we living in where a LWB 12-cyl. Benz could just be left to slowly sink into the very earth it was parked on?
I’d love to know this car’s story. Someone spent a good chunk of change on ordering the top-of-the-line Benz saloon and even went through the trouble of getting it Lorinser-ified, only to turn it into the world’s heaviest four-door lawn ornament. Something went very wrong somewhere.
There was a strange beauty about this black luxobarge devoured by greenery. But also quite a lot of frustration: the Lorinser stuff is basically a body kit, and most of it was invisible amongst the flora. Well, there was one solution: since this Panzer wasn’t about to be pressed back into service anytime soon, I just needed to wait for the grass to go away. Fast-forward to…
A couple years later, at the beginning of April 2023. I came across the Lorinser S600 again, almost by accident; I had sort of forgotten about it. But now, it was much more CC-friendly. Wheels aside, this is the genuine article, I think. Not that I have any other Lorinser W140 to compare it to, except those on the web, and there aren’t too many of those. But it seems pretty kosher.
Lorinser is a tuning specialist outfit, like Brabus or AMG. It predates those two as a business, having been founded back in 1930 as an independent car repair shop in the Stuttgart area. The company soon became a rather important Mercedes dealership, but only got into the tuning game in the ‘70s. Lorinser still does the lion’s share of their work on M-B cars, but have now broadened their scope to Toyota and MG.
As far as I know (which isn’t much, as there isn’t a lot out there about these), Lorinser did not do any special tuning to the W140’s engine or suspension. Their involvement was strictly to do with the body: special bumpers, side trim, wheels and the like.
The original Lorinser kit, as fitted to the first series Mercedes W140s (1991-93), would have included these famous wheels, which are conspicuously absent from our feature car. Then again, those wheels are so sought after that it is conceivable that they were sold off. The Lorinser kit was modified and expanded to the W140’s mid-section later, probably when the car underwent its facelift for MY 1994.
With just under 400hp in stock form, the all-alloy 48-valve DOHC 5987cc twelve is certainly able to get this sizable slab of black forest gâteau going. Sure, it’s not the 7-plus litre 500-odd-hp behemoths that AMG was making, but the Lorinser is not aimed at the same (small) crowd.
So who was this super-special S-Class trying to seduce? Well, the whole spiel that Lorinser was pulling here was better aerodynamics. That and big chrome rims. So the target audience was probably rappers, Hollywood heartthrobs and young-at-heart oil sheikhs. Apparently, one could also add a few Japanese connoisseurs. Still pretty niche.
Whoever ordered this one even went as far as deleting the hood ornament. Hey, if you’re looking for the path of least wind resistance, some symbols are going to have to go. The standard-issue V140 (that’s apparently the code for the LWB cars) boasts a drag coefficient of 0.31, which is already impressive, given the size of the beast. But I guess every little helps.
I’m not a huge fan of the W140’s looks (too massive, especially the rear end), but that cabin has to be one of the best-looking of the ‘90s. It looks a little weathered and unkempt in there, but it’s nothing a little elbow grease and a vacuum cleaner couldn’t fix.
That’s more than can be said about the exterior. A nice thick tarp would have been a lot cheaper than the respray this sad old Benz will require to be rejuvenated. The small twin antenna on the left side of the backlight is a TV aerial, by the way – those were de rigeur on Japanese market luxury cars in the ‘90s.
I took these pictures about a year ago, and I’m glad I did: knowing that this post would be up soon, I went back to the place where this sonderpanzer was languishing a few days ago, just out of curiosity. It was gone. Did someone clock it for what it was, purchase it off the owner’s relived widow, pump enough air inside those tyres to get it to a specialist repair shop so it could be brought back to its former glory?
We can only hope. I’ll be sure to keep an eye peeled for it – it’s not like there are too many W140s about anyway. It’s strange, as Tokyo is chock full of W124s and W201s, so there was a great appetite for Benz products in those days. The W140’s size may be the underlying reason for its rarity here, be it Lorinser or notinser.
Related posts:
Curbside Classic: 1993 Mercedes-Benz 300 SE – This Is What $100 Looks Like, by Brendan Saur
Curbside Classic: 1995 Mercedes-Benz S320 (W140) – Over-Engineered To The Point Of Excess?, by Brendan Saur
Vintage Reviews: 1992 Mercedes-Benz 600SEL, 500SEL And 400SE – Landing With A Heavy Thud, by GN
COAL: 1995 Mercedes Benz S420 – Gambling On A High Mileage German, by MagnumSRT8 Brian
That car give off strong Yakuza vibes. I think the car was left sitting while owner was in jail…. and now they’re out.
The W140 is my favorite S class ever. It was criticized for being too big, blocky, massive and imposing, which is exactly why I liked it. Say what you want, but this car has presence.
Ah, the “Tirpitz” is sinking …
A mushroom grade Benz, not as unusual as you think, Something that size on the lawn could save a lot of mowing after a few years,BMWs are more popular here as mushroom cars or more numerous anyway.
Big, old, complicated, expensive to maintain and repair cars are often found in this state. They are too old to be status symbols, they will cost more to fix than they are worth, and once a fairly major malady strikes them, that’s it. Lots of times the owner will hold onto them while they decide what to do with them. That process can stretch into many years! I wish that the owners would protect them from the elements while they make their decision, but many times the car is just forgotten and will sit. Cars like this need “the right” person to find and save them, unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of those people around.
I think this is my favourite view.
Popular with oil sheiks! “Lorinser of Arabia”
What a great find! I’ve never seen a Lorinser-modified Mercedes in the flesh, but it seems so low-key that it’s probably easy to overlook. I too would love to know the story of how this car wound up sitting the weeds – definitely a surreal sight.
The W140 has (heavily) grown on me over the years, or rather, decades. Maybe everything else being embiggened nowadays is what does it, or maybe it somehow harkens back to a simpler time at Mercedes. Hard to believe, that last part. Still, the W140 is the one sedan where when a normal person gets into it, it sort of feels like you are twelve years old again in size and get into the front of the family car, where you probably “could” drive the car and reach things but everything is a little too large or has too much space available around it. The interior space in these is just enormous for a sedan. The W126 was not a small car in its day, yet back to back it’s a tiddler compared to the W140. They made it because they could. And then spent the next three decades trying to make something just as big but with an envelope around it that visually shrinks it. Eh, why bother, just be big and own it if that’s your bag, you already build the Lego brick of SUVs, the G-wagen. And black may be slimming, and this is a post-facelift car which redrew some of the lines to visually tone down the mass, yet there’s no denying that it’s large and in charge. When this pulls up, it’s either *somebody* inside, or there may be some bodies going down outside. Either way, keeping a wary eye on it is advised. Along with keeping one’s distance. At least the black painted ones, if there’s one painted the light gold color or silver, pssshhh, go ahead and pet it, nobody will mind in that case. But don’t mess with the black ones.
It’s interesting this one doesn’t have the little rear pop-up posts, I wonder if Lorinser removed them, filled, and painted when they fitted the spoiler, I believe they were standard issue, at least on the 600.
This really though needed to be pulled up in the spot right in front of Chez’87, so you could ponder (and re-ponder) its magnificence every single morning. There’s still hope I suppose, it could reappear…
He hehe, don’t pet the black ones!
(Must ask, though, is it – er – quite normal to pet any car, in public, especially one whose little post might rise? Asking for a friend).
Bruno Sacco was a stylist of careful taste, and these moderate-sized container vessels – barge really doesn’t quite do it – have his hallmark about them. I never quite understood the flak they received, for they are to me handsome-enough devices, if not perhaps actually beautiful (but then, has any s-class been actually that?) They exude the necessary uber-mensch effect which is always part of any decent range-topping range. To explain bluntly, and especially so when black and Lorenzoed like this, you’re really not going to f*ck about with the occupants, now are you? (I see above that Jim Klein had similar thoughts, though better expressed).
New, over 30 years since, these were an astonishing $300,000 here. They got to a point about a decade ago where a very nice one with 70K miles on it was under $20K: I should have, even if just for a couple of months. They kept and keep a remnant of the sheer over-arching magnificence they had had when their many advances astonished the world at birth.
Lorinser I’ve never got. People would proudly advertise W140’s or (especially) W124’s with the various Lorinsered trinketry attached, every piece of which diminished any part it of the car was attached to. They all looked like some gormless pratt who’d happened upon the cash to buy an exquisite Saville Row suit, only to then don a gold-sequined long coat over it: in both cases, it does not improve the original at all.
This one looked better grassed and thus a bit covered-up, but the grass, I’m sure, looks even better with it gone altogether.
But I admit it was still quite a find, Dr T, and, aesthetics aside, word-worthy too.
Lorinsered, one could mistake it for a Honda Legend until perspective reveals its size.
The W140 might be big and horribly blocky at the rear, but it’s a lovely place to be chauffeured in; they feel armoured, even if they’re not.
The last of the true M-B cars and the looks have really grown on me as the later cars became ever more vile inside and out.
Even the Lorinser kit looks subtle compared to the factory excrescences of late.
These suffered from a bio degradable fuel injection harness, I used to know a Mercedes mechanic who picked one up for $1,500 and was going to try and make his own harness….
The shop moved away before that job was finished so who knows but Mercedes parts aren’t known for low co$t so this one may have a similar back story .
-Nate