If you have the means...
 

...I highly recommend picking this one up:

https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1957-mercedes-benz-300sl-gullwing/

Last bid at time of post was just under $900k and reserve still not met.

Nice!

Nice car.

Didn't Mark have one of these?

Yes Mark had a red one... (and a gorgeous wife)

CURRENT BID: $899,999 ENDS IN: 13 days!!! - Nice car but Yikes.

But did he have a Black Audi...

I had a black Audi wagon once - great car when sorted - but it was no gullwing...

I like how lighting picks up different hues in the paint.

Grey, blue and even a touch of green. Probably the camera changing the color.

Beautiful car.

Why yikes? :confused:

You must not follow the collector car market. These have been 7-figure cars for a while and this is a low bid. It will rise a lot before the hammer drops.

I had the 930 at a concourse once and the guy next to me had a gullwing. He paid 1.4 million for the car the day before and had the car transported from the seller directly to the concourse. The car won best in show. See money can buy happiness

Mark’s was nice, plus I enjoyed the other pics he posted too

I would buy a car for $50k and put the rest into real estate. At times in my life I have had that kind of money available to me. Never once did I think a car was the right place to use it.

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.

it is my ALL-TIME favorite car. that documentary about Bob Sima's car at the Bonneville salt flats sealed the deal in my mind.

it is so unattainable it is beyond fantasy for me.

Back around 2000 - 2005 I used to work with a company that allowed me to attend all of the races at Laguna Seca and I remember someone would show up at the Monterey Historics with a pair of them and proceed to run them at full bore every year. Even then they were incredibly expensive but it was great to watch someone with the means and comfort to run them as they were meant to be run. Stunning cars.

I used to dream of financially unobtainable cars. Today? Nope. The fantasy would be a private pool hall...filled with tables for every version of cue sport. Would take a ton of floor space...

A 300SL Gullwing tale from years back. There was a local cruise-in sponsored by a radio station here. The station DJ was a friend who requested I bring my 911S. Didn't want to be the only P-car there, so I reached out to a couple of friends...one brought his 914. I was hoping the other would bring his '58 Speedster... But no, he & his bride showed in their '56 Gullwing, all original, complete with fitted luggage and the rudge knock off wheels.

I'll never forget one guy rushing up with a car value magazine in his hands: "This is a replica, right? It says right here an original is worth..." Friend was gracious, said something like "Isn't that crazy?"

Surprised me a bit...the street rod set loved the car. Voted people's choice.

That's cool.

I was in the Mandarin Oriental in SF and senior couple get on the elevator with me. Woman has a diamond the size of your head. I said OMG, that is beautiful. Husband says "It's not real. It's CZ." Wife gets one of them grins on her face and says "It's real". Oh, it was real. They were oozing class. I was just there on Big Oil's dime.

Late 50’s my dad was a geologist in Wichita Falls Texas. Numerous oil companies there. He had a coffee drinking buddy that was a chemist for Texaco. A batchelor who had a Gullwing. They used his car to experiment with different octanes. Around 1960 he got married and offered it too my dad for the ungodly price of 5k it was afterall 5 or 6. We actually got to take a ride in it but my dad wanted a private plane instead and passed. Beautiful silver with red leather. Woulda coulda shoulda.

Anybody know if the street versions had the desmodromic valve actuators like their race brothers?

I suspect no and I'm not asking to formulate a bid. Just curious.

That is one fine automobile.
Of the drop dead gorgeous variety.

I'm well aware what these cars are worth but the grey car is a ground up restoration.

Original and unrestored. ;)

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