We have quite a lineup of heavy hitters for this edition of Hammertime Updates. There was the mighty Alpina B10 BiTurbo, which once again sold…
Comments closedGerman Cars For Sale Blog Posts
With my focus so squarely on the 911SC and 3.2 Carrera of late I feel like I’ve missed a couple of nice long-hood 911s. The one we see here, a Tangerine 1971 Porsche 911T Coupe located in Houston, is one such example wearing one of my all-time favorite Porsche colors. We don’t have much in the way of history to help us understand the life it has lead. We do see some receipts from the last decade, which appears to include its restoration work, so we should have some good knowledge of its current state. In its restored state it does look quite good. The asking price is too high (and that certainly goes against my recent focus on value among 911s), but sometimes the allure of the car draws me in enough to set aside price for now.
CLICK FOR DETAILS: Tangerine 1971 Porsche 911T Coupe on eBay
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Early AMG cars are always a bit of a gamble without proper documentation, but today’s example really had me stumped. The listing has a bit of misinformation and answers few questions about the history or build of this particular W126. The look of the car, too, is questionable mostly because of the poor photo quality. So, let’s see if we can take a closer look and figure out any of what’s here – is this car worth the gamble?
CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1980 Mercedes-Benz 380SE on eBay
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Yesterday Andy featured a very interesting and original green on green early 928. It’s the sort of period-correct combination that we’d expect in the ’70s. Here we’re going to step out of the ’70s and raise the performance bar quite a bit, but retain that green on green profile. Unlike the 928, whose lighter Olive Green interior provided some contrast, this 1986 Porsche 930 Coupe has stayed on the darker side of the spectrum for both the interior and exterior. It’s certainly more monochromatic than the 928, but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a light green interior I’ve liked so monotony aside, I prefer the combination here. The colors are Moss Green Metallic over Dark Green and, probably unsurprisingly, I can’t say I’ve come across another like it.
CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1986 Porsche 930 Coupe on eBay
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One thing that amazes me about the W124 cabriolet is how expensive it was when it was new. In 1995, when you drove into the lot at your local Mercedes-Benz you didn’t have a ton of choices. You only had the C, E, S and SL compared to the 16 different models now in 2016. If you made your way to the E-Class lineup, you had the E300D, E320 and E420 in sedan form. (Sadly the E500 was axed after 1994). If you needed to haul some stuff, there was the E320 wagon. If two doors were more your speed, you could either go E320 coupe or cabriolet. Now you think the prices would all be somewhat comparable since hey, they are still all E320s, right? Well, not so much. The standard E320 sedan came in at $43,500 while the coupe was $63,000. Now the cabriolet, you ready for this? The MSRP price was $79,000. Just for kicks, the 1995 SL500 was under $90,000. So why did the cabriolet run almost twice as much as the sedan? Cost.
To make this car perfect, it’s not just as easy as chopping the roof off and adding a soft top in the trunk. Over 1000 parts had to be changed or modified from the coupe to be at the standard Mercedes wanted. The A-pillars were welded together with metal inside the pillars to form a stronger unit in the area that is prone to buckling. To combat vibrations, there are a system of dampeners in the front and rear of the car as well as the roof frame. In addition to all that, fitting an automatic top was no easy task as the roof mechanism has 27 linkage parts and 34 joints. Mercedes manged to make a perfect top and still left you with a generous amount of room in the trunk. All of the designing, all of this engineering and all of these materials combined with labor made this car so expensive. Clearly, Mercedes has figured out a way to keep costs down now because a 2016 E-Class coupe is only $2,400 more than the sedan and the cabriolet is only $8,000 more than the coupe.