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I love “special wishes” cars. Something about a private (probably very wealthy) individual asking a major car manufacturer to make a whole bunch of changes to a car that is already incredibility detailed is interesting to me given how dialed-in production can be. You have every car on the line have a pre-determined build process, but then have one come along and have a totally new set of specs you’ve never seen before. I’d love to see the faces of the workers at the Affalterbach factory when they were given the instructions for this 1995 Mercedes-Benz C36 AMG up for sale in London.
It was only a matter of time before the Mercedes-Benz C36 AMG became a hot item. The ingredients of a significant history, low production run, and brand status all make for a desirable automobile at any price level. For the past 15 years or so, you could buy these for almost no money at all for well-used examples because they were nothing more than a minor footnote in Mercedes history. Now that AMG is a mega brand both on the street and the race track, people want the originals. Being this was the first official post-merger AMG to grace the US market, collectors are suddenly chasing them down while they still can. Yes, you can still find a decent example for under $10,000, but the perfect example are suddenly pulling big numbers when at the end of the day this is still a W202. So naturally, when one pops up, I always take a look to see if its an example worth lusting after. This 1995 up for sale in California sure looks the part, but once again, we have a dealer that is less than helpful.
These are strange times for the Mercedes-Benz C36 AMG. Once the breakthrough car of the official Mercedes-Benz AMG vehicles launch in North America, this is now a car that maybe isn’t quite a full blown collectible for what it is, but has some pedigree to be one. The problem with the C36 is that it didn’t have much fan fare when it launched because of its extremely conservative styling as well as the minor bump in power and performance. This led it to be forgotten about and ultimately into the hands of wrong people. You could find a well used example for well under $10,000 and if it was really beat up and rusty, $5,000 might take one home. Now, people want old performance cars with brand caché, even through their performance leaves much to be desired. The thing is, what happens to the examples that still have a ton of life left in them, but are far from the best example remaining? I’m curious to find that out with this 1995 up for sale in California.
Here is something I don’t see all that often. This is a 1993 Mercedes-Benz E36 AMG Cabriolet. If you are asking yourself why you never see these cars, it is because they are incredibly rare. The W124 E36 is exactly what it sounds like, a W124 with a 3.6 liter M104 from AMG with some cool bumpers and wheels. For as German as Mercedes-Benz is, they are dreadful for publishing production records on cars that aren’t worth a million dollars. Although maybe they just aren’t very open with sharing their information either. From what I understand, under 200 W124 E36 AMG cars were produced during the last few years of the W124 production run in the sedan, coupe, cabriolet and estate bodies. Of the less than 200, 57 officially went to the UK as right hand drive models and the rest were scattered around the rest of the world. Much to no ones surprise, none made it to the North America. Today, we have an E36 AMG Cabriolet up for bid in Illinois. Except this car isn’t one of those 200 cars. Please stay with me here.
Last week I checked out an interesting Mercedes-Benz C36 AMG that needed some help up for sale in Canada. It seems like no one wanted to give a helping hand for this car as it ended with no bids even at it’s reasonable $2,500 US starting price. Today, I ran across another C36 AMG up for sale in Canada although this one has a much different story. This 1995 is actually a Japanese-spec car that has a few little touches that set it apart from the North American-spec cars. Unlike last week’s example, this one isn’t a basket case that needs thousands of dollars to make it presentable again. In fact, it is actually pretty clean. The price? Not all that bad in my eyes.
