Flip this car

[alabbasi]

Take an over price car
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=190117631395#ebayphotohosting
What for it to arrive at your house
Relist it after three weeks for three times the price
tp://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=220126282104&ssPageName=ADME:B:EF:US:11
Don't bother to even use new pictures.....priceless   

[oscar]

I thought you were going to sign off with the Mastercard ending - Priceless

He used the same description too.  What a douche! 
It's almost worth bidding $100,000 on and recieve a non paying bidder alert.

[116Benz]

You'd think he'd at least try and cover up the fac that its the same car, let alone using the same pictures....It's a perfect condition 6.9, considering what he bought it for, and what he's selling it for, I think it's going to stay in his collection for a while

[John Hubertz]

Frankly, I do believe that if the provenance is right, he stole it originally.

If he would have a professional Ebay reseller and pro auto photographer properly document, research and display the car, I'd say $60,000 is not unrealistic.

After all, in a world where an average professional athlete makes 2 or 3 million USA per year, that is chump change.

And find another one....

[alabbasi]

John

If you remember, this is the same car that sold on ebay for $17000 last year. At the time, it was in illinois and has 14500. Now to your point on what it's worth. I would debate the value for a few reasons.

1) This car does not have document service history and the only people that would buy this car at this price are collectors who will insist on a telephone book of documentation (we enthusiasts wont buy such a car because we want to drive it and not use it as an investment).
2) The interior is not as good as you would expect for a 16500 mile car.
3) The coolant bottle is a dark yellow. This as I understand ages with heat and not with age.
4) A car this complex that has not been driven is likely to have more problems then a well cared for driver. It will more then likely require some restoration to make it a daily driver.
5) Every 500 miles that this car is driven, it will knock 1000 dollars of the price.

I spoke to the owner, he also mentions a power steering whine which really makes me wonder about the mileage.

[John Hubertz]

...I can understand Al's points, however I can't help but recalling something that Ettore Bugatti said when asked about the Royale shortly before his death as prices skyrocketed:

"Of the 19 I produced perhaps only 25 have survived."   

Documentation/provenance is very important, and God knows that non-working odometers have plagued 70s and 80s MB products.  But frankly, that just doesn't really matter.  At 30 years old ALL original 116s are on borrowed time.  Another 10 or 15 years and time alone will force restoration of soft and flimsy bits on all our cars.

For me the keys are the color and the legally verified miles.  There cannot be more than one or two other 6.9s with such low miles, and black/tan is arguably the most desireable color combination as it combines the ominous 116 in black that has dominated bad-guy film roles for this car, an interior that is photogenic vs a black interior, and it happens to be the brochure colors in the USA dealer brochure.

I'm not saying that it is ethical, but service documentation is both unverifiable and easily created.  Like you now see with the 60s era American musclecar, original condition is irrelevant - for top future value it must be the right CAR in the right COLOR with low MILES.  Creative forgery and flawless restoration takes care of everything else.

History belongs to he who writes it.

(perhaps a smidge cynical?)

[Nutz]

Buy low,sell high is the name of the game but yeah,he could have posted his own pics and info,sort of a douche for that.

[alabbasi]

I would take a restored car with 150,000 miles over this car any day. It looks shiny but he admitted that the interior is not perfect. The mileage does not seem to be genuine, look at how old the coolant reservoir looks, that happens with heat not age. So unless he ran the car for thousands of hours without putting it into gear, the mileage is probably not right.

This car lived in Illinois which is a cold climate region. I've seen lots of Mercedes Benz's with 100,000 miles on them that has an interior as nice as this in the UK where heat isn't as brutal as here. No dash cracks, no leather hardening.

If this car has 16500 miles on it, I would be worried about the rot on all the rubber components and the condition on the suspension. It's common knowledge that with an M-100, Garages kill these cars. They should be driven.

This is a picture of a Jag XJ6C interior on UK eBay, it's going for 7k GBP



Unrestored and unmolested

This is a one of a Rolls Royce silver Shadow I , 95000 miles and going for 5k GBP on eBay UK.



In my opinion, MB interior wears better then either Jag or Roller's. I've seen what the Texas sun can do to them.

I'm not saying that the car isn't nice, it looks good. But I am sceptical that it was only driven 500 miles in a year (I can do that in a weekend) and seeing that no one tracks mileage on cars older then 1990 and this one has no service history, I seriously doubt that he will see that price.