Famed French coachbuilder J.

Saoutchik is known to have bodied three 500 K and 540 K chassis, all for interesting personages, including Standard Oil heiress Beatrice Cartright and perfume magnate E.

Virgil Neal.

That offered here, the only survivor of the trio, boasts an especially fascinating lineage, that, indeed, has been spent almost entirely in the Golden State—although its story, of course, begins in Paris.

According to Mercedes-Benz records, the chassis arrived in the City of Light on 9 October 1935.

The chassis was delivered later that month to the coachbuilder Jacques Saoutchik to receive his masterfully detailed creation, featuring a disappearing convertible top, opening vee’d windshield, typically intricate interior woodwork, and elaborately detailed moldings along the fenders and flanks of the body, creating the illusion of waves sweeping against a hull.

In many ways the design of the car, in its profile and stance, recalls the coachbuilder’s cabriolet treatments on e...