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Month: February 2015

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Coupe Week: 2008 Mercedes-Benz CLK63 AMG Black Series

465 lb-ft of torque, that’s a whole lot of twist. It’s stump pulling, Cummins diesel, father in-law impressing amounts of torque. The CLK63 AMG Black Series is more or less a street legal DTM car and it still baffles me that anyone with a valid drivers license and enough money can operate one of these vehicles. I know a couple people who have driven these cars and all of them get this particular look in their eyes when they talk about it, part fear, part respect, part lust. For a vehicle based on the rather bland C209 platform, the Black Series is a striking car that demands attention via its flared fenders and bonkers soundtrack.

Oddly enough the Black Series flies under the radar in the enthusiast community, it rarely comes up in conversation when discussing the most insane cars of the past decade. Perhaps it’s because Mercedes only built it for two years or because it came out around the time of the Audi S5. Though the S5 was much slower, I think it was a whole hell of a-lot better looking and the 8T3 platform interior was far ahead of that of the comparable Mercedes. The ergonomics of all the C209 coupes leave much to be desired, AMG goodies or not. I’ve been baby sitting a CLK 350 for the past couple weeks and the cabin completely disappoints me every time I get in it. The buttons feel cheap, many of them are exactly where I wouldn’t want them to be and the whole package seems to be phoned in overall.  However, I’d be willing to put up with that lackluster interior in exchange for access to 507hp and I’m willing to bet you might be too.

Click for details: 2008 Mercedes Benz CLK63 Black Series On Cars.com

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1998 Mercedes-Benz C280

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Over the years, we’ve enjoyed showcasing high-performance or rather posh vehicles here at GCFSB. However, we do have an appreciation for the more mundane. These would be your base model or workaday vehicles. Those which are well-preserved especially grab our attention. This 1998 C280 for sale in Missouri represents the first year of the W202 C-class facelift. Two years later, W202 production would cease. Along with the demise of the R129 SL in 2002, a generation of styling language would come to an end.

The W202 C-class is a car I’m quite familiar with. I drove a 1998 C230 for six years and sold it to a friend, who has racked up over 200,000 miles. My mother, to this day, pilots a 2000 C280 in this very color combination. Her car is closing in on 130,000 miles, having bought it as a Starmark certified vehicle with only 7,000 miles on it. There is constant talk about replacing it with a present day Audi A4 or Volvo S60, but the old Benz just keeps going on from strength to strength.

Click for details: 1998 Mercedes-Benz C280 on eBay

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1974 Mercedes-Benz Unimog with 9,000 miles

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I love seeing the spectrum of Mogdom, from the pure work trucks, basic restorations, all the way to the all-out earth conquerers. The common thread between most, however, is that they have been redone in some fashion in their lives. Today’s gorgeous, tan 416 looks exactly how it did when it was built in 1974 – and looked exactly this way ever year in between. Having covered just over 9k miles, everything – the undercarriage, the chrome, the wood on the hydraulic tipper-bed – is perfect. It’s amazingly collector quality, yet the price is below some of the workers we’ve seen.

Click for details: 1974 Mercedes-Benz Unimog 416 on Ruyl Classics

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RHD 1987 BMW M535i

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RHD cars seem most cool when they are Land Rovers or JDM classics – beyond that it just seems like an inconvenience. Frustration aside, the M535i is hard to come by in the US, so I guess we’ll take them as they come. Today’s is looking clean in Zinnobar Red and just over 100k miles, and while the availability of cloth seats on nice Bimmers in Europe intrigues me, it appears the bolsters are still prone to wear and tear. The biggest upset here is the automatic transmission, which comes with some sort of switching mechanism but still detracts from driving enjoyment. I guess the M535i is more about looks anyways, and small-bumper fetishists can get their rocks off here.

Click for details: 1987 BMW M535i on eBay

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Feature Listing: 1998 BMW M3 Sedan

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The E36 M3 is the first M car that I can remember obsessing over. Ever since I got a die cast model of an E36 coupe race car in 6th grade, I’ve dreamt of flying around a track in one of these legendary machines, S52 wailing away at the top of the rev range. While it may be a bit longer before I can fully realize that dream, it seems fate decided to throw me a bone because I finally got some seat time in an E36 and it just so happens to be this very car. That’s right, the M3 which you see before you hath been driven by yours truly. The current custodian of this vehicle lives about 5 minutes away from me so naturally I had to lay eyes and hands on this vehicle if I was to write about it.

Honestly I was a little worried that the car wouldn’t live up to my lofty expectations. I have done my best to quiet the inner child in me that sees these vehicles as something extraordinary and instead look at them as the elevated daily driver that they are. After all if you think about the lineage of the M3, it’s kinda crazy that BMW decided to build a 4-door version. Then again, this was the 1990s, a glorious time for sport sedans, when crossovers were but a tickle in a designers finger and car design was, restrained.

Click for details: 1998 BMW M3 on Los Angeles’ Craigslist

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