The 540 K was Mercedes-Benz’s finest standard supercharged eight-cylinder offering of the Classic Era, improving upon the prior 500 K with a more potent 180-horsepower supercharged engine on a longer 3,250-milimeter chassis.

It was a faster automobile with better ride quality, and the lengthened wheelbase enabled the factory coachbuilders at Sindelfingen to truly work their magic with a long hood and marvelous sweeping fenders.

The 540 K truly announced itself, in more ways than one.

The scream of the supercharger as the driver accelerates, forcing pressurized air and fuel through the carburetor, is not soon forgotten by those who experience it.

Many of the 540 K’s Sindelfingen coachwork offerings were produced in three distinctive series.

The “second series” was the first truly created for this chassis, with little owed to the previous 500 K; the fenders were now deeply skirted, but attractively so, and the Cabriolet B featured a unique gently sloping, smooth rear deck, rather th...