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My SL55, gleaming silver and sumptuous red leather

DanSL55

Member
Joined
Sep 1, 2011
Messages
36
Location
Richmond, West London
Car
SL55
Reluctantly selling my gorgeous SL55 after three years of unadulterated fun with this incredible super-car - at launch, the most powerful production car in the world. It's still blisteringly fast, but totally luxurious, with a throaty, classy exhaust note that just hints at what's under the bonnet.

My car is in astonishing condition, I'm afraid I'm a bit of a nerd and that's how I keep my cars. Sumptuous red leather, virtually unmarked interior, and a complete professional respray last year to remove every age related blemish. The shine on this car is what you would expect when it rolled out of the factory. In fact we attracted some attention from the police while taking the photos somewhere we shouldn't - but we got chatting and they thought it was a new car.

This car has every desirable option including the glass panoramic roof, keyless entry and GO, Bose audio, SatNav, heated and massaging full memory contour seats and so on. I'm only selling because I've bought a Bentley Continental, and I'm slightly annoyed that the seats on this 20 year old Mercedes are even more comfortable. It's also faster. It just hasn't got enough chairs, and I'm not allowed to keep both, apparently.

Along with all previous owners I've looked after it like a baby. It has a complete service history of main dealers and specialists, and an inch thick folder of detailed invoices. I've just had a new service and new MOT, both in August '23. Everything drives and works as it should, I'm not aware of any mecahnical or electrical faults on the car.

Three brand new high quality tyres have just been fitted (the fourth is also good), and all four wheels were diamond-refurbished a month ago. The wheels like the rest of the car are pristine, these are the original AMG 20-spoke alloys as shown in brochures for the SL55 when it was launched.

The car has a few upgrades to make it very usable today. Firstly full DAB / Bluetooth wired into the original Bose audio. The DAB unit can either be mounted or left hidden, it's also professionally wired for a dashcam - all wires are hidden. Secondly a hand-built steering wheel from Royal Steering Wheels. They take an original SL55 wheel (which is rather thin), flatten the base, then cover it with hand stitched leather and alcantara. It's just gorgeous. It also has proper paddles instead of little buttons. Lastly I've fitted an upgrade to the transmission control unit so it now offers a new Agile mode, and full semi-automatic use on the paddles. Happy to explain this but it overcome a seriously annoying omission on the early SL55's. The car also has a specliaist roof control module, meaning one-touch operation of the roof at up to about 20mph, and also remote open and close from the key fob or the door-entry buttons. It's now a very usable car for today's world but all upgrades could be put back to original in a few hours if you wanted, for example I'll give you the original TCU etc which is just a push-fit replacement.

Like everything else on the car the roof works perfectly. The glass panoramic roof is one of the must-have options. It means with the roof up it still feels like you are in a large, luxorious cabin, with the option to pull a neat retractable shade forward if you ever needed to. Speaking of the cabin, I have always been amazed at how much storage there is, how it all central locks so you can leave the roof down, and how both the centre-console are a) big enough to put a bottle of wine in and b) air conditioned so it's lovely and cold when you get to the party!

The interior is spotless. The beautiful red leather has been fed and nurtured regularly, and is still as supple and glowing as when it was new. Very little wear to the seat squabs. The red carpets are original, and they're in great condition, because I have a bunch of other carpets that I put over the top to keep them that way.

Aircon is ice-cold (just refreshed at the service), engine is faultless, suspension is perfect, the car feels really tight and solid. I've just had some work done resolving a few rattles from the underbody heat shields so its now silent over bumps. I also just replaced a rear ABC shock absorber that intermittently leaked but only when it saw an MOT station - you'll see this on the MOT history.That's now fully resolved. My personal plate isn't included, it's back on SV52 XXB.

I bought the car off a collector who kept this car in a heated garage with 18 other classics. He drove the car less than 1000 miles a year, as did the owner before him. I drove perhaps 10 SL55s before choosing this one, and this is my second r230 SL. Many have been thrashed and feel loose. This is the best one I've ever driven. I resolved a few issues early on like replacing some pumps, batteries and suspension bushes etc, and I've had no major issues with the car in the 15,000 miles I've done since in three years. It's never let me down, t's just a joy to drive and own. On a personal plate, most people think its a couple of years old.

So this is a well specified, low mileage SL55 with a perfect service history, pano roof, keyless-go, brought up to a remarkable standard with a gleaming respray, sumptuous unmarked red leather, new MOT, service, tyres and refurbished wheels.

The car lives in Richmond West London, I look forward to showing you.

I've just put the car onto PistonHeads here : Used SL55 Factory Condition, a very special car. for sale, and will add more photos shortly.

Thanks for all the help and friendship received on this forum, it's a great community.

Danny.
 

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