The $7000 Mercedes 300SL........

[RDMcG]

I had lunch the other day with an old friend of mine. I had met him 20 years ago when he drove past me in his Gullwing. It turned out that he had had several 300SLs, and he turned up a photo of a convertible he had bought in the early 70s. The picture was taken in 1976 when he was saying goodbye to the convertible with a Gullwiing on the way. He had been in a taxi in Burbank California when he spotted the car on a dealer's lot and stopped the taxi. The dealer asked for $7000 and my friend asked if he could come back next day with the money.....

"No problem", said the dealer. "nobody wants the thing anyway"


'....


Hard to think there is anything like as exotic a 10 year old car today that you could buy for a comparable amount even taking inflation into account.

[Dapster]

Both the Gullwing and the roadster are worth well north of £1m in concours condition today. Assume the mid 70's were the days of £1:$2, then your friend paid £3,500 for the Gullwing, which according to the on line inflation calculator would be worth £22k today. Not a bad return.

[RDMcG]

As I recall he got about $22,000 for in in 1976 so even at that stage it had been a good buy.Still ,Gullwings were cheap then too and he bought one.

I was offered a very nice Gullwing in 1996 for $220,000 by its original owner..... Probably the biggest financial mistake of my life to pass on it.

[williamp]

very good indeed. Assuming he bought it in 1971, then a new Aston DBS V8 costed over $12,000. And in 1976, a new SL was $18,000.