[legion]

The 300SL is one of my all-time favorite cars.

I remember back in the 90's, when I was in high school/college and they were selling for a couple hundred thousand dollars. Most people thought I was crazy for wanting such an old, obscure car. I used to hope that maybe they would drop in value enough that I could one day buy one.

I interned in college at an insurance company that insured one that the owner had totaled in Nevada--so some of them were still being driven back then. (IIRC, it was valued around $450,000.) I imagine that most of the examples out there now are fully restored show queens whose engines are rarely started. I imagine that most parts have been NLA for decades.

I had an '85 300D from 1999-2000. I remember that certain parts were getting hard to obtain around that time for that car. Prior to that I had only owned domestics and was used to being able to get any part for decades after production.