Having had enough of the 'pleasures' of owning an ageing supermarket car that has depreciated to a point where simple maintenance is pretty much worth more than the whole car, we decided it was time for something more exciting.
The goal we set ourselves was to find a luxury car that has fully or almost fully depreciated and has the potential of becoming a classic. We wanted something fun and impractical and something that would really give you the pride of ownership feeling and the desire to wash and polish it all day long.
I have grown up coveting a) hardtop convertibles and b) Mercedes. So the SL was instantly a candidate. But in a bid to be at least somewhat sensible we thought we should go for a coupe, making it a bit less likely to be leaky, and the options we considered included Jaguar XJS, Jaguar XK, Porsche 928 and BMW 8. The latter became the main candidate, but something went wrong every time we tried to view one. So we thought fate must be trying to tell us something and decided to view some SLs.
R129 was chosen over the next generation as various reviews and comments proclaimed it to be a more robust car born before the loss of high standards under American influence. R107 is of course gorgeous as well, but it has already begun to appreciate plus even though we are both absolutely smitten by its looks, we're not sure we would be able to live with the lack of modern conveniences in the interior.
Hence, after reading a lot of online content and a few unsuccessful viewings, we finally found The One - a car we wanted to get no matter what. It's a great car, but it's not perfect, so we thought it would be a good idea to write this blog detailing the imperfections and the steps taken to rectify them as well as share the general stories of what it's like to own an R129 SL500.
Are you still posting as of aug 2015
ReplyDeleteStill around... Why?
DeleteJust bought a 1997 SL500 and diving into your blog! Thank you!
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