Fail Friday: 2004 Mercedes-Benz C230

I was making my rounds around the internet looking for interesting cars and was taken back when I saw the photo above. Was it some kind of European Touring Car? A 24-hour endurance car? The next thing that caught my eye was the price of a mere $5,000. Now I started getting excited. A cheap, real race car for sale in the U.S. that is ready to go?

Well …

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 2004 Mercedes-Benz C230 on Autotrader

Year: 2004
Model: C230
Engine: 1.8 liter supercharged inline-4
Transmission: 5-speed automatic
Mileage: 129,783 mi
Price: $5,000

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2004 Mercedes benz c230 kompressor, sport package, supercharged engine, lowered suspension, 18 inch staggerd wheels, fuly customized racing spoilers and body kit, racing decals, and muche more, automatic transmission, leather interior, ice cold ac, sunroof, alloy wheels, loaded, pw, pdlk, pm, ps, cruise control, black metallic color with black leather interior, runs great, clean title, cars, trucks, vans, and bikes welcome in trade, financing available, everyone approved , good credit, bad credit, no credit, call david at 954-513-5310/ jenny at 954-667-4904 or come see our cars mon -sat from 930 to 7 at 1108 n state road 7, hollywood ,fl,33021

This is not a race car. This is a just a regular C230 with the totally stock engine and totally stock interior — outside of a few red lines. No roll cage, no race seats, no sequential gearbox, just the standard gobs of W203 plastic everywhere. My mood went from total excitement to sheer wonder as to why someone would do this? I mean, I get that the race paraphernalia looks cool, but it looks cool on actual race cars. This is just the worst Mercedes had to offer at the time dressed up with as many stickers as you could fit on the car.

Looking at this from a logic standpoint, I don’t know if anyone will actually ever buy this car. Even if you wanted to build some sort of track car, you surely aren’t going to pick the W203 as your platform. If you wanted a street car, it’s far too low to be practical even on the best roads. One small incline and you’d rip the majority of the body kit right off. To top it all off, the W203 is junk to begin with. I’ve seen a lot of odd stuff on cars out there and this one is up there for being one of the oddest.

– Andrew