Enthusiasts Blogging Our Favorite Classifieds
“I don’t think it is necessary to explain to those who understand.”
That’s the only description from the selling dealer for today’s car. Granted, that was translated from Japanese, but it is the general gist of it. If you know you know, if you don’t, this isn’t the car for you. The iconic W140 Mercedes-Benz S600 punched out to 7.0 liters by AMG Japan and equipped with a bunch of other little special touches. In terms of 1990s sedans, this is up there. The price? Well, if you have to ask…
It seems like once a year I run across a rather interesting hearse that makes you ask “What do you even do with it now?” An honest question given they only serve one person, but today I have another hearse that seems to go beyond the normal setup and deep into the excess. Let’s check it out.
Back in the days the W210 Mercedes-Benz E-Class production, there was a model produced that didn’t exactly get all the headlines or fanfare, and that was the E430 Sport. For the 2000 through 2002 model years, you could option a E430 with the E55 AMG body kit. That meant much more aggressive bumpers, some cool side skirts, and circle fog lights that were unique to the E55. While all this was cool, Mercedes was smart enough not to offer the smoke taillights nor the signature 18″ AMG Monoblock wheels, as you had to settle for 17″ wheels. However, source a set of the Monoblocks, and you have a faux E55 to the untrained eye. Wouldn’t you know it, this is exactly what we have here with this 2000 up for sale in Massachusetts that has just 42,000 miles. I don’t want to spoil the party early, but this one might have some issues.
One of these more overlooked Mercedes-AMG models since the turn of the millennium was the very short-lived C209 CLK55 AMG coupe. You might be wondering how a car that ran from the 2003 to 2005 model year can be short-lived, but looking at the production numbers you see how rare they really are. In 2003, they sold a reasonable 761 cars here. 2004? Down to 509. The final year of 2005? Only 247. Considering there were roughly 350 Mercedes-Benz dealers in the US at that time, you were lucky to see one. Even though they are rare, there is not exactly much demand for them as they suffer from the curse of the CLK-Class. That is a thing totally made up by me, but let me explain.
Despite the CLK-Class looking like an E-Class coupe and Mercedes wanting you to think that, it rides on the W203 C-Class platform. That means a lot of shared parts, which isn’t a good thing when talking about the W203. Naturally, the drivetrain of the 5.4-liter M113 V8 with the 722.6 five-speed automatic is a gem, but the interior is a real letdown on these cars with the cheap plastic on almost everything you touch. Still, for this amount of money, who is to complain?
The SLC is really one of those cars that most of the time I ignore, but occasionally a really neat one pops up and grabs my attention. Sometimes that’s a cool 5.0 WRC homologation model, but I also like the base cars in European specification:
Today we have another of these Euro models to consider, though this one decidedly looks more a child of the early 70s than the previous few I’ve looked at:
