It's completely different.
Mercedes-benz cars of 20 or 30 years ago & older were much more expensive than just about anything else & much rarer than they are today. They were special cars.
My loaded 1986 2.3-16 cost over £37,000 in 1986, the same as a house in many areas.
The money went into over engineering & over building the cars so the original owner could keep their car for 8, 10, 12, 20 years or indeed forever if they wanted to. In the long run this made the cars
much less expensive than anything else as you didn't need to buy a new one every three or four years and thus avoided the never ending depreciation spiral.
MB have seemingly decided that the first buyer, who will typically keep the car 2 or 3 or 4 years, is their
only customer today & not subsequent owners. The cars are designed & built to try to make it through the warranty period.
My Dad had a pretty basic Ponton in the early '60's in California & it used to be the case Mercedes drivers would acknowledge each other with a headlight flash when they met on the road. I remember passengers unaware of the tradition smiling because of the salute. No other marque did that. In the mid '70's a mate's mum had a Signal Red 350 SL which would draw a small crowd of schoolboy petrol heads whenever it was parked at school.
Now, I'm afraid Mercedes has lost that caché.
YouTube - Faszination Mercedes Benz
P.S. Is that a young Michael Schumacher at 1.12?
diesel glow plugs and injectors, turbo seals,dash lcd display failure ,burnt valves, variable valve timing leaks, battery drain down, SBC brakes, Multiple electronic component / SAM unit failures. etc. etc.
