Since 1967, AMG has achieved worldwide success in its customer-car business by following an extremely simple ethos: If you could pay for it, AMG could do it. Before its acquisition by Mercedes-Benz in 1993, AMG and its semi-independent franchisees around the world never made character judgments upon prospective customers.

Unlike most marques, AMG did not care who you were, how many times you had done business previously, or how outrageous your customization requests might be—AMG cared least of all where your money came from…anyone with enough cash could be an AMG customer.

The car offered here is not only a perfect example of AMG’s corporate ethos, but also the company’s skill in executing even the wildest requests of its demanding clientele. This wide-bodied 560 SEC 6.0—the “Marakaito Missile”—is, without reproach, one of AMG’s most highly personalized creations ever produced for a customer.

But before digging into this car’s outrageous specification, let us briefly contextualize the mind-boggling expenditure represented by the general model offered here. First, the cost of its 6.0-liter DOHC engine conversion, and wide-body package from AMG—tacked onto the sticker price of a brand-new, flagship SEC Coupe—made this model one of the most expensive roadgoing marvels of the period. And that would be just for a “normal” 6.0-liter, wide-body SEC...but the Marakaito Missile is anything but normal, even so far as AMG builds go.

This car’s original owner—reputedly a Japanese businessman of considerable means—demanded the absolute best. Cosmetically, the car has everything: A full aero kit, a staggered set of color-matched Aero III wheels, and a rear wing-type decklid spoiler. For the most extreme interior customization requests, AMG regularly partnered with leading upholstery specialists such as Gemballa, or in the case of this car, Carat Duchatelet of Belgium. And the interior is really where the specifications get wild.

Absolutely every inch of the interior has been hand-trimmed in buffalo leather; the center console, dashboard, steering column, door panels, rear parcel shelf, headliner, and power-adjustable Recaro seats are all done up in upgraded leather (with green piping). Even the control panels for the seats are wrapped in leather!

The lower dashboard is done in black buffalo leather, while the upper dashboard wears dark green buffalo leather which also finds its way to the matching set of grain-matched, leather-faced gauges with hand-painted indications. A full suite of burlwood trim pieces accentuates the cabin upholstery to an incredible standard of finish which even carries to the storage covers on the rear parcel shelf. No self-respecting AMG Japan customer would abstain from ordering a full Nakamichi sound system, and this car’s original owner was no exception.

Though the car was evidently specified with every single performance option available, of particular interest among its long list of desire-inducing specifications is the M117/9 “transitional” AMG V-8 engine. Rarely seen, the M117/9 is an amalgamation of the earliest M119 block and heads with the latest M117 accessories, all cleverly mated together and stuffed with AMG internal components to supply approximately 375 horsepower. This powerplant represents a very temporary, transitional phase during which AMG’s world-class technicians were bridging the development gap between the outgoing M117 engine and the new M119 engine which Mercedes-Benz had debuted in late 1989. As such, compared to AMG’s earlier DOHC M117 motors these very late M117/9 hybrids enjoy greatly improved robustness, reliability, and serviceability.

In November 2024, noted pre-merger AMG specialist Jonathan Hodgman of Blue Ridge Mercedes (Lilburn, Georgia) furnished the car with nearly $20,000 in mechanical freshening and NLA parts. Of particular note is a new set of custom-spec engine mounts, new spark plugs, a factory-correct AMG torque converter, distributor cap, as well as a host of miscellaneous seals, gaskets, lines, filters, and fluids for the engine and transmission.

An AMG specialist for RM Sotheby’s recently commented, “the Marakaito Missile is full of AMG-commissioned, Carat-executed touches I’ve only seen rarely and certainly not together before. The attention to detail is absurd throughout, while the engine is very much a time-and-place kind of thing which was only in production for an extremely brief period. Considering that the Japanese economy collapsed only a few months after this car was built, I think it’s fair to say that this car was assembled at the perfect time, for the perfect AMG customer—someone who never asked ‘how much will that cost, or what will people think of me’…a true individual.”

Presented today from a notable California-based collection, the Marakaito Missile presents an unrepeatable opportunity to acquire what is, rather inarguably, the most highly personalized example of AMG’s most impactful, era-defining poster car.