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Here is what I found after a Google search :


You can do the math



Surfing the web looking for "1000SEL" I find the weirdest things and wildest stories. According to some the 1000SEL was fitted with 10 Litre engine. Some say it was an lengthened S-class stretched a 1000mm. Could it be a limousine that would be made on special order by Mercedes themselves? I'm sorry, some came close, but here's the truth.

The 1000SEL wasn't a Mercedes you could order at your regular Mercedes dealership. The 1000SEL weren't even made by the Mercedes-Benz company; the cars were aftermarket conversions made by coachbuilding and tuning companies like Kugok, Styling Garage and Trasco. Variations on the 1000SEL were even given names like 1001SEL (Gemballa), 5000GFG (GFG) and 5000SEL (Gemballa). Modified Mercedes SEC coupes were also given similar names but in stead of 1000SEL it was a 1000SEC.

So what exactly is a 1000SEL? Well, a 1000SEL-badged Mercedes could be anything. 1000SEL was just a badge on the trunk of a Mercedes and the contents were defined by the wishes of the customer. Some companies sold the 1000SEL separately so you could just order badge and slap it to the back of your 380SE Mercedes to make it look "the business". A real 1000SEL however was offered as a complete car with many high end modifications which will be mentioned in this article.

So where does the name 1000SEL come from? Well, somewhere in the early 1980s a Middle-East customer from Styling Garage ordered himself a heavily modified Mercedes 500SEL. When he received the keys he told the owner of the company, Chris Hahn, that his car was twice as good as a regular 500SEL and he'd like to have a different badge on the car. Well there you have it: 500SEL x 2 = 1000SEL. It should be mentioned that most of the 1000SEL conversions were sold to customers in the Middle-East.





A 1000SEC by the British company Vantagefield. The car was fitted with a luxurious interior including a TV and a VCR.


Exterior
The exterior of the 1000SEL could include many extras and options. More chrome, gold instead of chrome, paint instead of gold, new rims, bumpers, spoilers, skirts and a boomerang- antenna on the bootlid for the TV. All were options. In fact the badge "1000SEL" meant that anything was possible as long as you paid the bill.
One of the options offered by companies like ITS, Kugok and SGS was the so-called 600-nose. This new bonnet incorporated the style of the 600 Mercedes (W100) of the 1960's. Another option were to have the chrome parts sprayed in the car's colour or could be gold-plated (e.i. Kugok, SGS) or sprayed in a completely different colour (SGS).




Interior
A real 1000SEL Mercedes has a new interior. This interior should at least have a new upholstery, most likely in leather and preferably in white, creme or red. A centre console that runs through the whole car is also very important. This console was in most cases finished in the finest wood veneers and fitted with all kinds of compartments to store your personal belongings. A champagne cooler and a TV for the passengers must be included. High-end over-the-top HiFi-Stereo by Clarion or Pioneer were no exception.





Gemballa slapped this 5000SEL badge on a car that was made for Qusay Hussein, one of the sons of Saddam.


So there you have it, the 1000SEL was nothing more but sure nothing less than a superlative luxury vehicle, tailor made to the customers demands something the Mercedes-Benz factory wasn't able to make. It took another 20 years for them to invent the Maybach...



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