Month: June 2015
(lights lift slowly over a sole figure on stage, the band strikes up the first notes to the familiar tune Jailhouse Rock. The singer breaks into verse…)
“Seller threw an auction up on eBay’s site
He was hopin’ that the listing got his price just right
He thought that the famous owner would take bidding far
‘Cause that giant Mercedes-Benz was Elvis’ car
Let’s bid, everybody let’s bid
Anyone who remembers who Elvis was
Will want to get in his old cars…”
I was going to make a concerted effort to write this entire post without referencing either a Twinkie or the signature catch phrase “Thank you, thank you very much”, but I’ve just failed. Look, I’m not here to give you a history lesson on Elvis or his importance. I’m not here to recount the leather jump-suited Vegas years, whether I like fat old Elvis or young vibrant Elvis, or even debate if he stole music from African Americans. I’m not going to give you a history lesson on the Mercedes-Benz 600, either. But let’s consider a few things about this car. The 600 was expensive. Really, really expensive. Arguably, in the late 1960s it was the nicest car that money could buy, and since it took a lot of money to buy, some really famous people owned them. Only about 2,600 were made, mostly in short wheel base variants like the one that Elvis bought. We learn he put $5,500 down and yet still had 36 monthly payments of $344. That equates to $17,844 in 1969; a figure which doesn’t seem particularly outrageous today and even inflation corrected it’s “only” about $116,000. But it was far more expensive than your average car, and it took near royalty to get into the 600. You needed to be someone like Elizabeth Taylor, John Lennon, or…well, Elvis to buy one. And if you weren’t an A-list celebrity , you were probably a dictator; Chairman Mao, for example, was a famous owner, along with Tito, Ceausescu, Pol Pot, Papa Doc, Hirihito, de Klerk, Marcos, Kim Jong-il, and Saddam Hussein. Basically, you go through history, and everyone the West considers a “baddy” owned a Mercedes-Benz 600. But, universally they’re still lauded as one of the most impressive automobiles ever made, and when you couple a celebrity owner (which, proportionally, is perhaps more likely than any other single model car in history other than some really low-volume models of Ferraris and Duesenbergs) you’ve got a recipe for a high asking price:
CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1969 Mercedes-Benz 600 on eBay
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Fans of the BBC motoring show Top Gear are familiar with the travails the show has gone through over the years and I assume are aware of its current status due principally to Jeremy Clarkson’s constant ability to cause problems. Always found in the midst of Jeremy’s bellowing and Hammond’s whining stood James May, otherwise known as Captain Slow. As a constant source of jabs from his two ridiculous co-presenters, May provided balance to the show, but behind the staid exterior was a genuine motoring enthusiast who has owned a number of interesting, and fast, cars and bikes over the years. Some of his machines have made appearances on Top Gear itself, while others have appeared in separate one-off shows he has been a part of during his Top Gear tenure. One of those, his Guards Red 1984 Porsche 911 Carrera Coupe with just under 55K kilometers on it, will be put up for auction at this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed on Friday, June 26. Among cars with famous owners this Carrera is somewhat unique in that it is currently owned by James rather than being a car that is an owner or two removed from its famous owner’s stewardship. For fans of the show, that makes this low-mileage Carrera just that extra bit more special.
CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1984 Porsche 911 Carrera Coupe on Classic Driver
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A few days ago, we had an interesting comment from one of our regular readers, Aaron, with regards to the clean 1989 Mercedes-Benz 300SE. He had mentioned about considering this late eighties S-class as a replacement for his wife’s C300, which will eventually be turned in due to the lease. Have Mercedes’ gotten so bad that enthusiasts are looking to yesteryear for engineering excellence or were the Mercedes of yore just that good? Or are some people, myself included, sick and tired of fifty million electronic gadgets and gizmos in a car that can go wrong at any minute? Whatever the case may be, some of Mercedes’ best came out of the 1970s and 1980s, the W123 included. This 300D for sale in Texas represents the final year for the W123 production run, a car that carried on the tradition of safety, engineering and luxury for the Mercedes-Benz brand for a decade spanning the 1970s and 1980s.
CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1985 Mercedes-Benz 300D on eBay
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For all the high end exotics we feature here at GCFSB, there’s a part of us that still appreciate more modest transportation. Outside of the AMG variants, a late model W202 C-class might not be the typical car of choice for the weekly lineup here on our site, but it’s a car I’m intimately familiar with. For six years, I piloted a 1998 C230, the four cylinder variant of the car we see here. My mother has driven a 2000 C280 for 14 years, racking up over 120,000 miles with nary an issue. These small Mercedes sedans are robust machines, and if cared for, have the longevity made famous by Mercedes-Benzes of yore. This 1998 C280 for sale in Florida may not be too arresting in Glacier White over tan MB Tex, but it has only 57,000 miles on the clock. Mint condition W202s are becoming harder to find, so this one is worth a second glance.