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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.
The swan song for the R129 Mercedes-Benz SL was nothing more than a quick inventory of stuff Mercedes had laying around the warehouse in terms of parts and slapping it on a few hundred examples to call it the “Silver Arrow” special edition. We confirmed this a few weeks ago when looking at the 2000 SL320 “Edition” up for sale in the UK that was all the same parts with the exception of the white leather inserts on the seats and steering wheel. Although I’m willing to bet that leather was also sitting around on the shelf too and they need to get rid it of it before it got too dried out and dusty. However, the American market bought it up and still continues to do so as the very best examples in the world are selling for over $100,000 now and I think people are realizing these are the “it” R129s to have. Time to buy-in while you can?
Hard to believe we are in the middle of August, but we say that every year like its some kind of surprise that the calendar moves. Soon we’ll be heading into fall with cooler temperatures and, eventually the dreaded “W” word. What won’t be cooling off anytime soon is the demand for really nice R129 Mercedes-Benz models. I think the day is finally here for this generation of SL-Class and some recent results for nice examples only back that up. For now, it seems like its the second facelift cars with the SL1 and SL2 packages that are in most demand, and wouldn’t you know, that is exactly what we have up for sale today in Arizona. This one finished in the always fun Amber Red Metallic checks in with 65,000 miles and surely looks the part. The asking price of course reflects that too.
A few weeks ago I took a look at probably the best R230 Mercedes-Benz SL55 AMG I’ve ever come across. Turns out I wasn’t the only one who felt that way before it sold shortly after we featured it. That of course had me digging in the R230 rabbit hole and it looks like I hit gold today. This 2003 up for sale Oregon is a pretty standard example. First model year, has a couple dings and scars, 133,000 miles, but overall what’d you expect. It isn’t a flood car or two SLs welded together. Just a used 2003 SL500. Then I saw the price and wondered how insane an idea it would be drive a 16 year-old Mercedes convertible across the country. It’s that cheap.
As much as I love cars with an insane amount of miles on them, finding older cars with just a handful of miles can be just as fun. This 2002 Mercedes-Benz SL500 Silver Arrow checks in from California with just 4,600 miles on the odometer and the classic story of “bought it for the wife, she didn’t drive it”. The last Silver Arrow I looked was a SL600 with just 5,400 miles that carried a truly insane price tag of over $100,000. This SL500 actually looks like a brand new car and the seller states that all the service was done on a regular basis regardless of mileage or use. Thankfully, this car isn’t six figures like the SL600, but it still is going to set you back a boat load more than what a Silver Arrow with around 100,000 miles will run you. Are you in?
I must be getting old, because it seems like every year that passes my tolerance for “project cars” gets smaller and smaller. When I had a bunch of free time, I had no problem messing around for countless hours on one of my cars. Now? Get this job finished as fast as possible and be done with it. Don’t get me wrong, I still love my cars, but they wear my patience thin sometimes. This doesn’t mean I still don’t browse for cheap cars constantly and run across some that might not take all that much to have a decent example for way less than market value. Today’s car, a 1994 Mercedes-Benz SL500 up for sale in California, might be that. Looking at the price, I thought it was going to be a total basket case that didn’t run or looked like a nice family of mongooses took up residence in the interior. Much to my surprise, that isn’t the case and this car actually has some extra goodies on it as well.
