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A few weeks ago I took a look at the former king of the Mercedes-Benz chauffer cars, the Maybach 62S. Back when it hit the scene in the early 2000s, it rivaled everything on the road of terms of executive ground transpiration and certainly had the price tag to match. However, now that 20 years have passed, it isn’t so impressive anymore other than it being a look back into the time and doing the math at how much value they have lost. When Mercedes brought back the Maybach name as a sub-brand in 2015, it certainly made more sense to have them positioned as a trim level of the S-Class, rather than trying to pitch them as an entirely new brand. Wouldn’t you know, it fared much better and certainly kept production costs down as the majority of the changes were just to the rear seating and some various trim pieces. In typical S-Class fashion, it followed a heavy depreciation after the first few years but still offers great value if you want to go that route. This 2019 up for sale in Texas offers you a $50,000 discount if you’d like roll around in a previous generation car. Would anyone even notice?
This is it. This is the big one – literally. The Maybach 62 rings in with a 150-inch wheelbase and a total length of over 242 inches. Single parking spaces need not apply. Starting price? Over $400,000. You can see where I am going with this one. This was a car bought by those who would never drive it. Still, today if you buy one of these to actually drive, you are out of your mind. However, now that these are old enough to legally buy cigarettes? It might not be a bad idea. Well, maybe it’s not a bad idea…
If you are feeling déjà vu, you are on to something. Last month I checked out a 1998 Mercedes-Benz S600 7.0 AMG and now a month later, we have the brother 1998 CL600 7.0 AMG. It is probably safe to assume these both came out of the same collection, and believe it or not, this one checks in with over 100,000 kilometers on the odometer. Long live the M120!
About a month ago I took a look at a 2003 Mercedes-Benz CLK55 AMG that you wouldn’t think to be all that rare, but was actually just one of about 750 cars for the model year. Keeping with the rare Mercedes-Benz coupe thing, I wanted to rewind the clock back to the mid-1990s and check out a car that is even rarer — the S600 Coupe. Towards the end of the W140 run, Mercedes really cut down production on the V12 cars for North America much more than you would think. This 1997 up for sale in Georgia is just one of 348 for the model year. The lesser S500 Coupe was nearly triple that number with 933 cars imported, while 3,510 S500 sedans were sold in 1997. Now that these are reaching full-on classic status, demand for them is high and so are prices for the low-mile cars.
“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…
