Description
re-listed due to timewaster (a human with eyes and ears turned up)
Beautiful Rose Wood Metallic 129 , owned for 5 years and has been faultless save for expected and expensive issues. These have all been addressed by marque specialists including loom, roof rams, oil tubes and new rear plastic window. In my ownership the thing has never let me down. The car was perfect. Until I moved home.
But, and I wish to be frank here.. I want rid.
In lockdown I moved from a flat with underground parking in London where this car sat in what was effectively an hermetically sealed environment. The car was used regularly and was a delight. Crucially I could leave it when not in use and not agonize about it.
I got a dog (Bruno) because I had no one to talk to in 2020 and so I needed a garden and so I moved to the set of Water World. This whole situation is Bruno's (the dog not Sacco's) fault.
I now live in a cottage in a swamp in Surrey. My parents used to tell me that I lived my life with my head in the clouds. Now I am literally doing it. I feel like an like an extra in Blade Runner.
Our village is popular with local schools, they study the river on geography field trips. We have had so much rain, groups of them are to be seen with their measuring sticks out at the end of my slip way. I am having to point out to them that they are on a road-and that the river is a mile that way.
Animals are starting to gather in two's and this car is disintegrating. it needs, to go.
I have had it in storage but I have stayed in less expensive hotels and having it there meant I never used it. I would have kept it there forever, because I am stupid, but every time I took it out there was new damage that Mr Nobody did and ALWAYS it would need a new battery. despite paying for it to be tickle charged.
Do you know how much an R129 battery weighs/ costs? Any idea how hard it is to get one in to the rear wheel arch? When the proprietor and I fell out he suggested, I think unhelpfully, that he thought that what I had was possibly, a "parasitic drain" and I said that I was certain that I did, I was talking to it.
You can source batteries for these more cheaply if you shop around. There is an aerospace breakers yard that have a bundle of the exact battery type that this car needs-they used to be used to start up Boeing 747's.
It is now out, listing (starboard side) at the back of my garden and I am actually starting to resent this vehicle and my relationship to it. It has lost it's point and it is almost certainly going to start to get ruinously expensive. It is in fact, very similar to the state of my marriage.
Values of these have truly bottomed out but I can almost warrantee that they will pick up as soon as this one gets sold.
I am the man who sold a LHD 964 C2 for 8k a month before Singer sold their first car, I am also the man that sold an F355 for 25k and an R107 for 4. I am also the man that gave a 205 1. 9 GTI and a 16v Integrale away in 2006.
I have been cursed with having the wrong car at the wrong time for all of my life and seemingly have an innate ability to identify precisely, the bottom of any car's market value more accurately than anyone in the world. I am effectively the yang to Hargety's Yin.
I bought this SL in the summer of Prince Harry's wedding. I was hoping he would use an R129 as his wedding car in a witty homage to his Mum, the queen of our hearts and that prices would rocket. Then Brexit happened and the cost of fettling this type of liability exploded as all the people who did the spannering on them upped sticks.
I have recently been billed £1100 to have two wheel calipers refurbed, it took three weeks and they have come back looking like Stevie Wonder has painted them
This car has an invoice in 2004 for "gearbox overhaul" £800. Simpler times.
The market has spoken though, and it currently values sheddy 1980's not fast Fords at double the price of a mint one of these. Go figure.
My poor automotive timing could quite possibly work in your favour. If you have a dry garage, a knack with spanners, a PHD in arcane auto electrics, have a few screws loose, and want a fiendishly complex 30 year old Mercedes then come and see me, I will hold out my hand and congratulate you "Well done, you just bought yerself a Mercedes SL" (and then I am going to be on my heels)
You could even start your own You Tube channel "I bought the cheapest R129 in the uk and it's roof WORKS!" and show your subscriber's this cars (only) party trick.
You were amazed that Elon's chopsticks caught that rocket last week? Wait till you see an R129 roof go up and down. You ain't seen nothing yet. If you buy this car, my firm advice is to fold the roof down, put the hard top on and forget it happened. If you use it, it will go wrong and you will be needing Elon sized pockets and Space X's engineering team to rectify matters. If you are a fan of Elon and end up going to Mars with him, may I suggest Sir takes a bag of R129 distributors (I have one in this car's boot) . If there is a molecule of water on that planet, just leave a few of these outside at night and you'll be able to have a shower each morning and a nice cuppa. They are made out of a plastic that is so hydrophilic that they are actually drying the kg bags of silica I put in this car's engine bay in a vain attempt to bail it out.
If you are Irish, top of the morning to you, it's available for export on classic car terms after it's birthday in December (if this rain continues you might be able to sail it back home)
Be quick and come and see it, perhaps bring your other half. If he or she is a fan of the "Holiday" you can have a quick drink in the boozer that Jude Law pulled Cameron Diaz in. This SL is currently parked in a river outside. But please bring your wellies.
I am going to be honest, this car no longer drives perfectly. It's last MOT was in November after it was serviced with Klasse. He's one of the good guys. I spent £2. 8k, she has had had new disc's and new distributors. The bad news is that you are going to be getting him to do these things again shortly. It has developed a misfire that sounds like a fire work show under the bonnet. When it does get going I am not sure whether this vessel is down on power or that she has shipped so much water that she cannot move her added weight around (like a functioning R129 280SL). I would add that this blight on my life seems to have a fault with the petrol gauge, I have not filled it up for a year and the tank seems to be increasingly full every time I board it. Possibly a faulty (soaked) gauge?
To answer some obvious questions-yep, the car was originally registered in Singapore-came here in 1998. The odo has been changed I suspect on it's return to blighty. It now reads a mile for every km you travel (if you can) believe it or not. Either way, frankly I am beyond caring.
It also has the wrong bumpers but I am not a clairvoyant and do not know the original owner so it's something I will not be able to explain to you. My suspicion is that whoever was well heeled enough to import a car like this to the far east brand new wanted it to look as up to date as possible. Why he then put fake AMG alloys on it I am also, unable to explain.
Working nights at the moment so if you want to enquire, please email first and I will SONAR you back.
If this car does not sell at this price, it's going in my shipping container, under some rugs and I'm going to ask Johnny Smith to do a barn find in a decade. I even have a sob/ back story prepared and it is true (it's called my life)
If I haven't drowned in the interim.
NO OFFERS
part exchanges accepted-rowing boats/ canoe's/ submarines/ scuba gear. a
Vehicle background
Has the vehicle ever been imported?
Part exchange:rowing boats/ canoe's/ submarines/ scuba gear. arcs
