Hi Guys,
Also new on this site though I was on the MB veteran list a decade ago or so. I have an "horizon blue" 250 SL of November 1967, among the last produced which I purchased in California in 1998 - it was an original black plate and I'm the fourth owner according to the service book. It is in absolute original condition, never resprayed. It runs fantastically well thanks to a "magician" in the Netherlands, close to Amsterdam (yes, I'm writing from old Europe...), who fixed a few issues and tuned it wonderfully: the car still reached 180 km/h (in Germany only -:) !) easily and is still very punchy, with a perfectly functional automatic gear box. happy to give the details of the specialised workshop to anhy interest member: the guy is not cheap at all, but you see the difference when you get your car back
I've been a long time customer of MB until the early 2000 where I got fed up with recurrent electronic bugs on my then brand new CLK cabrio 200 kompressor and an equally brand new ML 270 CDI whihc I bought for my wife - this car had so many problems that we wold it (for a very low price...) hardly two years laters. I went to BMW (not much happier) and to Audi for a A6 avant 3.0 TDI quattro - a fanstatisc car that i drove for 137,000 KMs without a single bug!.
I'm currently considering buying a 2003 SL 350 (R230 model) but am hesitating because of the bad memories of MBs from that time. If anyone has some insight on the reliability of early 2000's SL 350, I'd be happy to get some feedback.
Cheers,
Marc.
(UK)