Thank You my Dorky Past Self

The 2007 S600 project is literally on ice right now, and I'm actually using the term literally appropriately as the car is frozen under a a sheet of ice, thanks to a recent winter storm. Don't worry, I'll be assessing and updating  on that project soon. In the meantime, the weather has dictated indoor pursuits, which led to a great find!

A recent discovery in my parent's basement storage has me giving many thanks to my very dorky past self. During my awkward adolescent period around Y2K, a pimple faced, bowl cut donned,  6 feet tall, 130 pound  past version of me was given a small two drawer filing cabinet. I started collecting things I thought were interesting, and continued until around high school graduation in 2005. I moved out for college and my parents moved homes shortly after and I had not seen the file cabinet since.... until today.

Found in the Cabinet. My senior photos with my 2001 Dodge Dakota and 1985 Mercedes 500SL, the latter of which I still own. The Ferrari 348 was rented for a few hours during a 2004 Vegas vacation by my slightly drunk father. Don't worry, I drove the whole time, but the only other stick shift vehicle I had driven at the time was a friends  Isuzu trooper. 

The cabinet was hidden well,  behind other childhood items. Dusty, locked, and the key long gone. I pried it open and found it to be untouched from when I last saw it. To answer the obvious question about what a boy going through puberty would collect, there we NO nude magazines inside, or any pornography of ANY kind. Al Gore had created dial up internet for that. What I did find was a lot better.

Car stuff! Tons and tons and tons of car stuff. Sales Brochures, magazines, and auction catalogs from the early Barrett-Jackson auctions I attended. It brought back lots of memories of those times, along with some depressing and uplifting reflections...

Let's start with the depressing: The first classic car auction I attended was the 2004 Barrett-Jackson auction in Scottsdale. The national headline making top selling car was a 1938 Lincoln Zephyr custom hot rod which sold for $440,000. This is a few years before wall street types started seeing cars as investments, creating the massive bubbles like million dollar Hemi Mopars and 40 million dollar Ferraris.

1938 Lincoln Zephyr. Sold at Barrett Jackson in 2004 for $440,000.

One of my dream cars has always been the Mercedes 300SL. There happened to be 2 gull wings at that year's event, both were perfectly restored examples. I remember the silver one going across the block and fetching $400,000. I also remember talking to the driver of the car hired by Barrett Jackson. The drivers were usually retirees and car enthusiasts who would get assigned cars at random to bring across the block each day. He was very displeased with the hand he was dealt with the 300SL. Being a muscle car guy, which Barrett Jackson auctions are more typically geared towards, he did not appreciate the car one bit. Hated getting in and out of it, and could not figure out how to start the car after driving off the block, pulling every knob.... which launched every accessory like what would happen if you spilled your soda on a Jaguar's center console. If he only knew my envy!

Picture this car with lights flashing, wipers at full speed and an angry old white dude wedged inside cussing up a storm.

 I was shocked by the price, but still adamant that one day, if I worked really really hard, I would own a 300SL. $400,000 was alot of money, but seemed like an attainable number. Jump 10 years to 2015, that same car would easily fetch $2 million. So far in the stratosphere that it's totally unthinkable for anyone who doesn't own a hedge fund.  You see this to a lesser degree with air cooled Porsches. In a 2005 Dupont Registry, there's a very depressing ad I found for a low mileage 1979 Porsche 930. Yours for $39,000 or best offer. It's easily $200,000 car today. So you might think unlike previous generations of car guys, there's no hope buying used, low production European supercars on the cheap, but wait! You're dead wrong!

What a deal!

From the year 2001, I kept a brochure from the Mercedes CLK line, which was the year the CLK55 AMG was launched. This was the first AMG production coupe and the fastest Mercedes ever made at the time. I also kept the Car and Driver magazine from that year entitled BLITZEN BURNERS, which pitted the BMW M3 vs the CLK55.  Car and Driver picked the M3 as the winner, as did car enthusiasts. As the years ensued an entire religion has been created by gear heads for the E46 and E39 BMW. What's been somewhat forgotten is the CLK55, which was always my favorite. The curvaceous lines of the coupe were very unique. Unlike past Mercedes with a more uniform, conservative design, it was a complete departure into something totally different. With the AMG body kit and monoblock wheels, it was stunning to look at. The Car and Driver reviewers loved looks as well, and its hand built 5.4 liter 342 HP V8, but it seemed no manual transmission option was the determining factor in the BMW's victory.

About a month ago I made cross country car purchase, which I have been patiently waiting to arrive. I knew I was fulfilling an adolescent dream buying this car, but didn't realize until my file cabinet discovery how much I really coveted the AMG back in the day. You guessed it, I bought a 2001 CLK55 AMG. Black on black, 102,000 miles, in really good condition.... and it was only $5400. I don't have any delusions of grandeur thinking it will be a million dollar car someday, but I think it's comforting to know that some low production, super fast and desirable European muscle cars can be bought super cheap. A big thanks to my friend Matt who was local to the car and handled the transaction for me. He had to drive it in blizzard conditions today to meet up with the transporter. As you can imagine, it was quite "useless" as he put it, in the snow.

Look for a full write up on the car when it arrives!





P.S. Another car on my bucket list that's super cheap right now. Some day.

Easy to find good examples of the
996 Turbo for around $30,000

So I just bought a 2007 S600 Bi-Turbo

Last week, Tavarish on Jalopnik posted what's been brought up many times on the website. For the price of a lightly used Accord, you can afford to buy a ridiculously depreciated luxury super car. LINK This particular column referenced specifically to a V12 bi-turbo Mercedes S65 AMG with 100,000 miles for $20,000. Forget the fact that a tune up will set you back $3,000 and a brake job costs the same PER HUB, or the $15,000 worth in hydraulic suspension components that are on borrowed time by that mileage. Also forget with more electronics than the space shuttle you're playing warning light roulette with every turn of the key. Any rational thought goes out the window with one statistic: 737 foot pounds of torque. Very few cars can top 737 torques, and they don't include any Ferrari or Lamborghini ever made. To think a car only bested by a Veyron or  Koenigsegg can be bought for less than a new Camry is lunacy. We see these posts on Jalopnik often enough, but rarely see anyone brave or stupid enough to actually try it out. This is where my bravery and stupidity comes in.

I decided a few months back it was time for a V12 in my life. Given my intimate familiarity with Mercedes, I didn't want to stray from my favorite marque. After tons research I eliminated the 220 S-Class (2000-2006) because.... they suck.... big time. Underwhelming styling, cheap looking interiors, coupled with horrific quality. Due to poor paint bonding, the 220 S-class is just as susceptible to rust as the Yugo. Mercedes dealer technicians are often left scratching their heads when diagnosing the hilariously named ABC hydraulic suspension. The next generation S class (221 chassis) solved these issues by going with air ride suspension, upped overall quality, and a more stately look, but they were out of my cheap V12 budget. That's why I decided to go older, the 140 S-class, which ceased production in 1999. Despite the older V12s not having twin turbos or ridiculous torque figures, they still had gobs of power, and are much easier to wrench on.

The early model run 140 S class had serious issues like biodegradable wiring harnesses (which tend biodegrade prematurely and wreak havoc on the electrical system) and poor quality air conditioner evaporators (40 hour billable job to tear apart the dashboard to remove and replace). I limited myself to only model year 1996-1999. The problem with that was very low production numbers. We're talking well under a thousand S600s made in those four years. Despite the rarity, I found many seemingly good candidates.

When I would call a S600 seller, the conversation would go great at first. They were described as perfect cars, impeccably  maintained, thousands spent on this and that, until I brought up getting a pre-purchase inspection. Then I'd hear excuses like being too busy to take it to a mechanic, or the dealer will lie about non-existent issues so they can make money, or they would actually start disclosing what was really wrong with the car. Things like "Something drains the battery so I just disconnect the it when I park the car for more than a few hours" or "It was running rough so I unplugged the mass airflow sensors, runs great now".
 To sum it up, there wasn't a single example for sale that wasn't a basket case. They were good cars, but just too old and ruined by the neglectful third, fourth or fifth owners. I was dejected, about to give up on the whole notion of cheap V12 ownership, when I found this.  On one of the Mercedes forums I frequent, a vaguely worded ad was posted.

"2007 S600, 149,XXX miles, $10,000 OBO. Car got hot and died now it cranks but wont start. I started taking apart to run compression but don't have the time. Car is in great shape with pano roof." 

Wow, I thought, a super cheap newer body bi-turbo V12 and it was only a few hours away from me! I look up the cost of a used motor and I overheated myself. $6000-$8000. Yup, you could get a beater Honda S2000 for the same price as a motor. The math didn't make sense. 

Because I was curious for the story behind the car, I started chatting with the seller anyway.  It was his father's car, who is a big enthusiast and the second owner. He also owned a V12 Bi-turbo SL65. It had high mileage because of his 120 mile a day commute. It started leaking coolant and the owners wife died. He was busy with arrangements and put off getting the car to the shop, topping off the leaking coolant every few days until it totally let go severely overheated on him. He took it to an inexperienced mechanic who charged him $1200 for maybe a few hours of dishonest work, said the motor was toast, and quoted him $12,000 for a used replacement. He decided to get a new S400 and let his son deal with selling the car. 

So I had to at least try to buy it, and started the negotiations by doing the math for him. A good running 2007 S600 can be bought in the low $20,000 range, so it wasn't worth it to fix the car up at the $10,000 asking price. The son noted he's "very open to offers", but the panoramic roof assemblies are selling for $3000, and door skins for $400 a piece, so there's significant parts value. I decided to offer a little above the two parts he quoted.... $4000. Worst he could say is no, right? He countered at $5000! Thank goodness this was over email because there was no keeping a poker face with that fantastic deal. Because I'm a jerk, I decided to go for the extra $500, and he agreed at $4500. A few days later, I borrow my buddies trailer and make the trip to Grove, Oklahoma to pick the car up. 

Loading the car was interesting. Being an electronically controlled transmission there was no popping it in neutral. The ignition needed to be turned to the run position, and the battery charged enough for the computer to engage neutral. The battery still had some juice, but was weak from sitting for a month. Every time it started to go flat, the car defaulted back to park and engaged the brakes. I didn't know this information until I attempted to load the S600 with the winch and watched in awe as the 2,000 pound trailer and my 6,000 pound truck started dragging backward, while the behemoth Bi-turbo didn't budge. 

Eventually I got it loaded and made the 200 mile trip home, with my nose heavy load testing the maximum towing capacity of my half ton GMC Sierra 1500. It felt like I was towing the space shuttle, especially on braking. My friend, that I borrowed the trailer from, informed me after the fact that the trailer brakes weren't functional...

So it may not be running, but I own a 700 torques bi-turbo S600. This may be the most beautiful lawn ornament ever. Stay tuned as the car is assessed and I bring it back to life.