Wayne’s intolerable Mercedes

Dan’s Bugazzi post last week inspired a lot of, well, there’s no other way to say it: hate. I was reminded of another little gem I saw about four years back at the Kruse auction in Phoenix, Wayne Newton’s 1981 Mercedes-Benz 380SL.

It was described as a “Niko-Michael Custom.” From what I could discover, this was a shop in or about Port Washington, on the north shore of western Long Island, which was associated with a few Rolls-Royce and Bentley restorations. I called around to old-timers in the area but came up with bupkis, aside from Jim Shelley at Georgica Services way out in Bridgehampton, who recalled that around 1990 he thinks he worked on one of their old projects for a customer.

When I saw it about four years ago, it was a no-sale at $220,000 – that’s right, almost a quarter-million dollars, yet no one seemed to have heard of it before, nor since. Kruse had a little press release about it, but with almost no extra information. Additionally, a German M-B board came up with a few more photos, but again, no more information.

In my auction write-up in HSX 10, I said,

Gaah! Our eyes! Up until this point, we had a soft spot for Wayne Newton, but after seeing his Niko-Michael custom, we wash our hands of him. The enormous, horrible black on black V-8 coupe was full of perfect leather and wood, and the bronze-colored trim along the fenders appeared to be…thick slabs of solid bronze. We presume the hardtop is removable, but we didn’t try. The whole bloated slab of car must weigh 5,000 pounds, and the 1,700 miles suggests that even Wayne doesn’t have the cojones to drive it, since he’s owned it since new. $220,000 is getting close to 300 SL territory, but bad taste knows no bounds.

So, anyone ever see this car before? Where did it come from, and where did it go?