1995 Mercedes-Benz S320 on eBay
You long time readers know that I occasionally break the GCFSB mold and throw out an oddity that may strike me as worthy or rare, surprising or crazy. This Mercedes S Class falls into the too odd not to share with someone category.
What we have here is a perfect storm of… well something.
Let’s start with the car from the factory, the W140 S class were great cars, but this is the base U.S. model S320. Maybe the 6 is more fuel efficient than the 8, but you have to work it so much harder to move this heavy sedan around that savings aren’t going to be super. Outside of that there is really not much advantage to purchasing one of these with only the 3.2 liter engine.
Now to the more obvious, the outside has been painted and gold plated to near death. The paint job is peculiar, not so much in color, but the two tone scheme only covers 3/4 of the car, stopping at the C pillar for some odd reason. I think the car would look a little less off if the upper and lower paint scheme was carried through.
Ubiquitous in this type of situation we have upgraded S500 badges and AMG logos added. Surely AMG with their high performance, but rarely overly ostentatious vehicles is pleased to be associated with this. The car does have a ground effects kit, listed as being AMG parts. It has been painted a third color, the same golden yellow that adorns the two rear spoilers. The car comes with a second set of 24k gold plated rims too.
Inside more gold plating and some fairly extensive interior work. The seat and door recovering work is pretty extensive and likely cost a fair amount of change when new. The seller says there is nearly $4,000 in extra burlwood trim alone. The leopard print floor mats complete the package. The aftermarket 51 disc CD changer, which may or may not be just sitting loose in the trunk could be a collectors item some day.
Perhaps what is most surprising about this car, and hurting a potential sale, is its location in New Hampshire. I usually see this type of custom work in the southern portions of the country and sure enough the vehicle history report shows this car originated in Miami. The more subdued car culture of New England certainly must see this car and raise an eyebrow.
The seller breaks one of our cardinal rules of advertising, writing the ad in all CAPS and stretches the truth a bit when saying the 150,000 miles on the engine are just breaking it in. I appreciate the seller is enthusiastic about the car, and I really do try not to criticize people for their tastes, to each their own right, but boy this poor car is going to have a hard time finding a buyer at the ask price, it sits at $15,000 with the reserve not met and no bids. I also don’t feel so bad about it when a read the large decal in the car’s rear window.
Any takers?
1995 Mercedes-Benz S320 on eBay
~Evan
There should be laws against applying such mind boggling levels of tastelessness to a motor vehicle as shown here. The seller must either be on drugs, and/or sell drugs, to expect a reserve-not-met starting price of $15K. The other neighborhood pimps and drug dealers in Keene must be soooo jealous of your pimped out ride…
If the April 2000 accident shown on the AutoCheck was the incident that caused the “insurance write-off,” there was a hell of a lot more than “no damage.” It takes a fair amount of effort to total a 5-year-old S-class. But who cares? The damage that’s been done to this poor W140 since that time is infinitely worse!
If you’ll excuse me now, I need to go find some mind bleach…
Do you remember the scene from Miami Vice when Jeff Fahey fired a stinger missile at Sonny Crockett’s “Daytona”? In my humble opinion, this car deserves a similar fate.
My dad had a black 1995 SWB S320 throughout the late 90s. Not terribly quick but understated and comfortable. I can’t believe this is even the same model. Simply awful.
Money and bad taste are a lethal combination, aren’t they?…this example sporting the cha-cha kit gold package and Lola Falana Nj Jersey Housewives interior package. Over the top even by the most ardent Versaci fans….
This car needs to be exported immediately to Rihad where it will be most appreciated.
Somewhere a pornographer is missing his car.
A fair amount of Acuras, Infinities (Infiniti?), Mercedes, BMWs and now Audis look like this in Providence, RI. No joke. No gold though, usually all chrome, but the paint and chrome (instead of gold) details are similar. They’re all generally leaking oil, or on the back of a flatbed, have a flat tire or one original wheel in stead of the 22″ chromies, the boot, or some assortment of parking ticket residue on the windows….shaking license plate frames/unintelligible bass lines a per-requisite.
This cant be unseen.
LOL it looks like something off that episode of South Park where they were making fun of Persians…. i lived near a highly arab neighborhood and a lot of their cars were modded to look a lot like this.
No bids at $15,000, relisted at $5,000 with a reserve.
[…] see the light of day, even if they do fall out of line of our typical finds. See this S320 as an example. What we have here is another Benz with a custom paint job I couldn’t resist […]