After a long battle with cancer, the only player in soccer history to win three World Cup tournaments, spent his final days surrounded by family at the Albert Einstein hospital in São Paulo. He passed away in December 2022, closing the chapter of the Brazilian player of humble beginnings. He secured iconic status after scoring twice for the Brazilian soccer team against Sweden to win the World Cup in 1958, aged 17 years.

Pelé’s health problems – it seems – began two decades later, with the media reporting his right kidney got removed in 1977. Thirty-five years after that, Pelé braved a successful hip surgery, and watched the 2018 World Cup draw in Moscow alongside President Putin and Diego Maradona confined to a wheelchair.

Pelé would get hospitalized a month later after collapsing from exhaustion, which seemed to open the floodgates of illness ranging from a urinary tract infection to mobility issues to kidney stones.

A tumor got removed from the right side of his colon in September 2021, but Pelé returned to the hospital again that November due to what ESPN Brasil described as “general swelling,” along with cardiac issues and concerns that his chemotherapy wasn’t working.

Pelé ultimately died on the December 29, 2022, eight days after Albert Einstein Israelite Hospital said he needed “greater care related to renal and cardiac dysfunctions” because his tumor had advanced. His agent, Joe Fraga, confirmed his death with the words, “The king has passed.”

Pelé Received A Mercedes-Benz 280 SE W108

For the Brazilian soccer star, fame, and success naturally came with many cool perks, including gifts from reputable automakers like Volkswagen and Mercedes. At the height of his soccer career in the 1960s and ’70s, Pelé got gifted desirable cars, including a VW Beetle (his first car after winning his first World Cup at the age of 18), an Aero Willys 2600, and two Mercedes-Benz cars, including a 250 W114 and the 280 SE W108.

Other notable sports figures cruised around in their Ferraris and Lamborghinis, while Pelé painted the roads of Brazil yellow with his iconic Beetle, one of the best-selling cars of all time. As the years wore on and his soccer career progressed, the car gifts Pelé received got elevated, hence the two Mercedes. French automotive designer Paul Bracq designed the ultra-roomy Mercedes 280 SE (W108) and (W109) introduced in the mid-1960s.

Mercedes equipped the car with six- and eight-cylinder engines, with customers getting the option of a standard or long wheelbase, complete with luxury leather interior. The mechanical features included a steel single-joint swing axle suspension. Until his passing last month, Pelé served as a UN goodwill ambassador and an ambassador for the Volkswagen Group since 2013.

Why The Mercedes-Benz 280 SE W108 Is Our Favorite Of Pelé’s Cars

Mercedes-Benz produced the W108 and W109 between 1965 and 1972 (1965-1973 for the North American market). It was nothing but the best for the man who ultimately scored a remarkable 1,283 goals in 1,363 games, 1,091 of which he scored for Santos FC, effectively making the Brazilian sports club one with the most goals in football history.

It was nothing but the best for Pelé, which is why Mercedes gave him the W108, which was an upgraded version of the W114/W115, making the W108 successor to the Mercedes-Benz W111 and W112 fin tail sedans that got often mistaken as a two-door W108. The W108 was only available as a four-door model.

The W108 enjoyed market success both in West Germany and overseas markets, including Southeast Asia and North America. The W108 and W109 sold 383,361 units in seven years, with the W108 making 359,522 of that figure.

Pelé’s 280 SE model of the W108 got propulsion from a 2.8-liter single OHC inline six-cylinder engine that Mercedes unveiled at the 1951 Frankfurt Motor Show as the mill to power the marque’s then-new Mercedes-Benz 220 W187. This was the first engine with a cylinder bore higher than its stroke that Mercedes fitted in a production car, using a reverse-flow cylinder head. A late model 280 SE got a 3.5-liter V8.

Mercedes paired the engine with an in-house-built standard four-speed manual and optional four-speed automatic transmission. Pelé’s W108 slotted among the 1969–1972 models, with an available five-speed manual to go with the inline-six. The 158-horsepower W108 may not be the fastest car on the road, but it gets credit as the father of the S-Class Mercedes-Benz, currently the world’s best-selling luxury sedan.

Sources: ESPN, Wikipedia, Reuters, Sky Sport