Yahoo Autos Bono's 1980 Mercedes-Benz has an interior that will give you vertigo
Long before he became an environmental activist, U2 lead singer Bono proudly drove around in a stately, V8-powered Mercedes-Benz 450 SEL. While he no longer owns the sedan, it retains the modifications he made shortly after buying it (including a sound system worthy of a night club) and it's looking for a new owner in England.
Bono, whose birth name is Paul Hewson, reportedly purchased the 450 SEL to celebrate the release of Boy, U2's debut album. Mercedes-Benz sold several variants of the W116 at the time, but the singer went straight for the top end of the range. He selected a long-wheelbase model powered by a 4.5-liter V8. It wasn't the flagship of the W116 line-up, that honor went to the 6.9-liter model, but it was far nicer than what the average 20-year-old drove in 1980.
And yet, he wasn't fully satisfied with the interior. British auction house Car and Classic explains he spent around £12,000 on a custom-designed sound system that includes massive Alpine speakers integrated into the four door panels, a graphic equalizer on the passenger side of the dashboard, no less than four amplifiers in the trunk, and a cassette player. One of the car's later owners added a CD changer, presumably when cassettes fell out of vogue. It's such a powerful system that a fire extinguisher was installed in the passenger-side footwell; it's still there.
