$10,300
Palo Alto, California
Category
Coupe
Mileage
92000
Posted Over 1 Month
A rare white exterior tan interior Texas/California car. Already considered classic in Europe. Cost ~$130,000 nineteen years ago. Massive number of new parts: restored to off-lease condition. Serviced by two best San Francisco Bay Area Mercedes mechanics. Upgraded wheels, brakes, and entertainment system to bring it up to par with modern cars. Embedded "invisible" K40 radar detector. Silky-smooth large V12 engine. Drives like a dream. Need garage space for my next car restoration project. Wouldn't have considered selling otherwise. Thank you for your interest! I'm listing this for the second week. During the first week, I received several offers on eBay between $7,000 and $7,800, which I had to decline, as I was getting higher local offers. Look, I invested over $14,000 in parts and professional labor alone, to restore this car to its current condition. And I started with a reasonably clean specimen, which hasn't seen a single snowy winter in its life. Not to mention it took me almost a year to find it - this is an extremely rare color combination in a non-rusty S600. And not counting my labor over many weekends, which I estimate at another $11,000 if I had to pay for it to mechanics. I realize that buying an almost 20-year old car on eBay is risky - that's why the car is open to mechanical inspection ordered remotely by anyone, and for test drives if you happen to be in the area. I know that car owners can be unreasonable, and I guess I am too to certain extent. Yet, consider this - each year for the last 20 years or so I went to a major auto show. I got to sit in every car imaginable. For the last couple years, I'd drive home from the show in the S600 and think - there were only half a dozen new cars I would maybe take over mine - and all of them cost $100,000+. It is confirmed by independent evaluators - a fully-restored late-nineties S600 was found to have just as hight quality of materials and drove very similarly to the late two-thousand's. I used to own a much newer 2005 S600 - a very unreliable car - and eventually replaced it with this 1997 S600. It just doesn't make sense for me to sell it for the same price as unrestored S600s are currently selling. An unrestored car doesn't feel as opulent and doesn't drive nearly as nicely as a restored one. As I mentioned, I need garage space for my next project - a luxury SUV - which our family needs to haul camping gear and food for the team to my daughter's out-of-town volleyball tournaments. If not for this, I would keep the S600 for much longer. Funnily enough, couple years ago these cars stopped declining in price and started increasing. I guess those that were not lovingly restored are already in junk yards, which explains cheapness and abundance of used spare parts for them. The restored ones will become classics. If I don't sell it in a reasonable time, I guess I can just put it in some inexpensive storage in Nevada and consider it an investment.
Trim Coupe
