Warning!
We have 15 years of archives. Links older than a year may have been updated to point to similar cars available to bid on eBay.
This site contains Ebay partner affiliate links, which may earn us a commission at no additional cost to you.
You might of heard the story of the Colorado man who had a little affinity for Mercedes-Benz 300SEL 6.3s. (You can read the story here if not.) I understand where this man was coming from because if you really like something, go get four more of them. In his case, the M100 powered W109 just happened to do it for him and I don’t blame him one bit. Now that all five of these 6.3s have been saved and rejuvenated, one of them is up for adoption. Unfortunately, though, the adoption fee is quite steep.
Last week I looked at a very low mileage 2001 SL500 and today’s car is another SL, although a little newer and with a lot more power. The R230 SL55 AMG was the exactly what you would expect from a mid-2000s AMG car: a supercharged V8 that makes almost 500 horsepower and just as much torque. Now 13 years and well over $100,000 worth of depreciation later, these top down monster have become very cheap. But is it worth it?
The Mercedes-Benz R129, in my opinion, is in that limbo stage where a it’s not fully a considered a classic yet, but it’s starting to be eyed up as a future collectible for the right models. In typical SL fashion, the chassis ran a staggering 12 years from 1990-2002 which saw many face lifts and engine updates. Seeing as there was a giant difference in technology between 1990 and 2002, the first R129 that rolled off the line and is a lot different than the last R129 that did. Today’s SL for sale in California is towards the end of the production cycle and takes advantage of almost all Mercedes had to offer at the time.
Earlier this week I looked at a 2003 G500 and explained that despite it being a relatively mass produced Mercedes, it doesn’t depreciate like you’d expect. Today’s featured car is somewhat like the G, except it’s a lot faster and a whole lot more rare. Enter the R63 AMG – the answer to a question no one asked. This is a vehicle which I still can’t understand why Mercedes would green-light for production.
The short of it is that the normally mundane first-general R-Class was given to AMG to let them do their thing. The result was pulling everything out of the AMG parts bin, bolting various parts up where they count and coming away with an all-wheel drive people hauler than does 60 mph in around 4.4 seconds. Carter recently included it in his insane van article for The Truth About Cars. Seeing as Mercedes isn’t totally insane, the R63 AMG was limited to a production in the mid-200s worldwide with only 30 making it to the U.S. and a mere 5 to Canada. So as these monsters hit the 10 year-old mark, what’s going on with their value?
I have an affinity for vehicles that have hit the moon milestone (238,900 miles) while looking like they’ve done so with relative ease. For this 2003 G500, it has already hit the moon and is halfway home on the return trip. I think people have an irrational fear of higher mileage vehicles because they’ve either been with been with cars that didn’t age well or they’ve been told that higher mileage automatically means “bad”. There is some merit in that the more miles a vehicle has, the greater the risk of things failing, but I believe that you get out cars what you put in them — which a few exceptions, of course.
