The Forum members on this board is why I rarely go to BW. I did not even post the FS link on BW because I know what the reactions would be from the forum members there, in general.
Gerry - yes you saw this car that day at the RBM dealer technical get together. It rained that day, so it was a challenge to show her off. If I had put this car up for auction 2 years ago, I probably would have sold it for $35k-$50k more, IMO, than today. I am trying to catch the market for pre-merger AMGs at a high. TBH, I tried to get the car in the Goodings Amelia Island auction in 2 weeks, but they closed the consignments. That auction has the 2 Hammers (well, one Hammer and a W124 coupe with the M119/7 engine). Broad Arrow has 4-5 AMG cars (one widebody and one sedan that both have the 32v engines and a couple other cars). My thought was there would be quite a gathering of AMG collectors at Amelia, but it didn't work out. I did, however, specifically want my car auction on MBM to start and end before Moda Miami (RM Sotheby's) and Amelia Island (Goodings/Broad Arrow) auctions to happen, not after.
The engine rebuild took about 4 years to complete. Interesting story on this - I shipped the car to So Cal because I wanted to join up with Henric, Mark Pearson, and a couple other AMG nerds to road trip to Scottsdale for the 2012 MBCA national Starfest concours at the Biltmore Hotel. I had just tracked the car at Road Atlanta a few months before Starfest and the engine was not happy. Jon White picked up the car for me and it went to Motorwerks in San Diego (Sergio - shop owner). He scoped a couple of the cylinders and saw some scoring. He pulled the engine and I was fortunate that Henric had a fully rebuilt M117.963 Gen I 5.4L AMG engine on an engine stand. I bought the engine from Henric and Sergio installed it in my SEL. We did the road trip to Phoenix (had a blast on that trip) and I drove the car from Phoenix to Atlanta after the show. I wanted my #'s matching engine back in the car, so the rebuild started. Took a year to get the block and crank work done, took most of a year to get custom pistons spec'd and fabricated, took about a year for my brother and me to build the engine (and addressing stumbling blocks along the way to perfection). I then had Jono pull the donor 5.4L engine and I sold it to a Canadian who wanted to put the engine into his R107, IIRC. He drove to Atlanta and picked up the engine.
Why am I selling one of the finest W126 AMG's? I have loved this car for 15 years. I have spent well over $60k rebuilding the mechanicals, sourcing key parts like a full AMG Sebring exhaust, rebuilding the engine, buying five sets of tires in 15 years to make the car the best of the best. I will shed a tear if it sells - no question. But it is time for the car to be the apple of the eye of a new owner and show the car in more car shows. I am in the middle of the restoration of a legit and documented 85 SEC widebody that Louis
@nocfn turned me onto in 2015. I am also retiring in 2 months, so my needs are different now.
thembmarket.com
Wish I had more pics. I might have been more of a coupe guy at that point 
