Also, if you really want to, you can listen to ACDC's "Thunderstruck" while reading this. I give you permission.
It's a 1993 Mercedes-Benz 600 SL. It's got a 6.0L V12 engine with roughly 400 horsepower. It is very, very fast. I'm not sure if it was in the super-car class in it's day, but I can't imagine it was too far off. The car also has only 33,000km on it (at the moment), so it's virtually brand new. The car itself is from Japan, so a lot of the decals in the interior are written in Japanese. It's still left-hand drive though, because Mercedes didn't want to release right-hand drive cars for some reason. It was probably expensive enough to make the car to begin with. The car originally sold for $137,000USD in 1993. I looked up the average exchange rate in 1993, and in Canadian dollars that would have been $177,300. Yikes. Fortunately, I didn't pay that much for it!
It comes with a convertible hardtop, which means that you can take the solid top off. It also comes with a cloth cover. Both the hardtop and soft top are secured by hydraulics and so they are water and air-tight.
The guy I got it from did some modifications to it, mostly neat stuff. I'll point those out on the pictures.
This shot of the rear shows how low and wide this thing really is. It's very much a sport stance. Check out the width of those tyres, they're gigantic. The guy also put a little spoiler on the back. It's really small though, so it's hard to see. I think that's pretty tasteful. A huge whale-tail would look kind of dumb on a car like this. He also put the AMG chrome plate on this. Mercedes didn't adopt the AMG name for their high-end cars until about 1995, and they didn't start reasonable production of the AMG line until 1998 with the SL55 (which actually had a smaller engine than the 1993 600SL). He also changed the chrome plate from 600SL to SL600, a name which they adopted in the following year. Both these changes kind of update the look of the car, and I like them. It really makes it look classy, and considering that it's nearly identical to the later AMGs (which were horrifically rare, only about 300 AMGs were produced of ANY class prior to 2002), it will fool people who don't know any better. Cool!
On the picture above you can see...the body is like 50% engine! It just goes on and on and on...really cool. You might also notice there is only one wiper blade. It's the weirdest thing. It's this one huge wiper that goes over the whole windshield. I've never seen anything like it before, it's crazy.
The interior is spotless and pretty damn luxurious. The guy I got it from added chrome around the gauges in the dash. It looks really nice, I like that addition. This thing is only a 2 seater, and it's definitely a sportscar, so the ride isn't like ultra-smooth or anything, but it's still really nice. The seats are fully adjustable and really comfortable. It also comes with a Bose sound system with a 12-disc CD changer in the back behind the driver's seat. This is good, because the radio in it is still the Japanese radio. Its FM range is really terrible, it only picks up stations 89.9FM and lower. I don't want to change it though, the original radio is still really nice and I can get the university station. You can also adjust the suspension electronically from a switch for a smoother or sportier ride. The big red button by the shifter operates the convertible hydraulics. All the locks and movement of the tops is done electronically from that one switch, the only thing you have to do manually is remove the hardtop once it unlocks the seals.
The wheels have also been changed to AMG wheels from the later AMG models. As I said before, they're huge and look beautiful. They're MUCH nicer than the original wheels for this model and really add a lot to the look of the car. You might notice by this time that there isn't a scratch on the paint of this car. Not one.
Not that you can really tell, but the front grille is made of pure titanium from a recycled jet engine. It makes it go faster in much the same way flames make a hot rod go faster. You might also notice there are wipers on the headlights. That's because there is a pressure sensor on the headlights that automatically wipes the lights when it rains. That's so incredibly awesome that words escape me. If you look a little closer on the wheel you can also see the brake calipers have been painted red. That's another thing the guy I got it from did, and I think it looks really cool.
So there's my car. I love it. I'm not a big "car guy" or anything, but it's just an amazing little thing. It's fast, sporty, classy and a lot of fun to drive.
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