Car appreciation... the aesthetics, the engineering, etc

The load bed in the E63 with the rear seats down is 198cm X 110cm, which is why I'm changing, other than that I really like the C55 which is why I've spent so much £$£$ on it.

As you say, it's making others understand that it's not a shitter that is always the issue.

Have you tried getting Motorway to quote? Surprisingly easy process and got more than I was asking for.

I have not, but will give it a go. I tried the Autotrader "what's my car worth as PX?" feature and it said "£3,500" IIRC, so I'm not very hopeful!

Well, more than Autotrader, but not quite what I had in mind:

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Ha. Might be worth giving them a call. Their "premium sales team" are good at working with harder to find cars.

I suspect they'll want to work with stuff that's newer and higher value tbh, my car is more the realm of specialist performance car dealers who deal with modern classic type stuff.

As you’re after a European cruiser, and LHD is advantageous here, have you tried looking in Germany, Spain or the Netherlands?

As someone who names companies for a living BESTPRICE is giving me the shits

I gave Four Star Classics a call, very nice chap as it goes - he said "as one of 50 cars this is going to be worth serious money in 5-10 years, can you not hold onto it?"

So that's helpful.

Get a 3-door Range Rover classic then spend the rest of the money getting someone to put a 1000bhp Challenger Demon engine in it, go big while you still can

Or get a C5 RS6 Plus then get someone to tune it to 1000bhp

Wow - I thought 'clocking' cars was a thing of the past, especially in the more specialist end of the market. Doesn't something like this show up on the MOT history?

Yours sounds a sensible price but as you've said, your challenge will be finding someone who appreciates the extensive work thats been done.

E63's look to be phenomenal value at the moment.

£80k+ cars new 5 years ago with sub-50k miles now at £27k.

15% depreciation a year for those lucky 1st/2nd owners.

Guess its similar for any big powerful german barge of similar age.

No ones buying them new with cash either are they.

E63's look to be phenomenal value at the moment.

£80k+ cars new 5 years ago with sub-50k miles now at £27k.

15% depreciation a year for those lucky 1st/2nd owners.

I'm moderately tempted to just buy the one I linked to earlier in this thread, the 2016 car on 31,000 miles for ~£31,650, and then worry about selling my C55 with no pressure of time.

The person who owns that car is clearly a serial killer though. Those back of seat pleather arrangers with tissue boxes. Maybe used for dogging?

Might be worth taking a black light for the test drive.

Does a 29er fit in the boot of an e class? I've ended up in mtb land as a result of my youngest becoming an enthusiast. Fitting two 26ers in the boot of a Giulia in the pouring rain is not pleasant.

My biggest bike is 6'8" IIRC from nose to tail, the back of an E Class is 6'5", so a slight turn of the bars and they'll go in complete.

General question prompted by @Dammit 's linked-to barge up there. Why do mercs have the seat-adjust controls on the door? It's something that's used so infrequently that the door seems an oddly prominent place to put them instead of down the side like most manufacturers.

he said "as one of 50 cars this is going to be worth serious money in 5-10 years, can you not hold onto it?"

You know somebody is a nice chap when they try to persuade you not to hand over your money.

Think its only the ones with memory setting that do (at least it is on the latest generation ones)

Makes it really easy to switch before you get in.

Thinking about trading my e220d estate for a c300 estate, as now the kids are moving out of their booster seats they actually need less room.

Issue there is that I'd still want a larger car, and I don't have anywhere sensible to (as he said) store it and go for the odd blast when it's sunny.

If the former isn't dependent on the later why not.

Honestly, because I've nowhere to store it. And it would be very useful to put the 15-16k from the C55 toward the E63.