I have a FULLY LOADED 1999 S500 M-B Grand edition. I know that only 600 were produced and not all were fully loaded. Just how many had all options installed? I keep my cars until they are not worth repairing but, in this case, will the car be worth a premium price in the future as a collectors item? It had 24,000 miles on it when I bought it, now it has 87,000 miles.
Thanks JC
Probably too many miles to be rare AND valuable. I went to a car show recently and one guy had a Volvo P-1800 with less than 8000 orignal miles, and totally original conditon (no modifications). That’s rare and valuable.
It’s too early for it to regain value lost to depreciation, unless it had especially low mileage. Remember that there is also the S600; even more elite than the S500. If you want to put it away for 15 to 20 years, it might get more valuable. But then a gain, maybe not. Who knows what people will value 20 years from now? Enjoy your car, and keep it running well. To me, that’s when a car is most valuable.
One step over carpaccio, but less than medium rare.
Twotone
This car will continue to depreciate for years to come, as all MBs, BMWs, and Audis do. Plenty of fancy S classes out there, and their values drop as the wealthy owners move on to new toys.
Rare?
I’ll give you a couple of examples of cars that are really rare!
In 1964, Studebaker introduced the R3 engine option for their cars. This was a supercharged V-8 with a larger displacement than previously offered.
Total 1964 production with this option:
Avanti R3–a total of 9 were built
Commander sedan R3–ONE was built
Now that is rare!
It’s just another used car in a market with VERY few buyers…
With 87,000 miles it will never command a premium price. It may be rare in 50 years.
In my experience looking at old cars “rare” means they made less than one for every person on the planet at the time. As for holding any car as a collectible I would advise against it as anyone who has familiarity with the late '80’s old car boom would say. Cars that were and today are almost completely worthless shot up into tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars because they were “rare” and “Collectible” and got left holding the bag when the market tanked and some of the cars still haven’t recovered their values despite 20 years distance.
Morale of the story buy cars because you want and enjoy them or they have an emotional connection ex) first car, was a loved relatives, met your wife in it, etc.
Not because it will be “collectible” in the future.
Online buddy of mine claims to have gotten a special edition 2005 Roush F150 that Roush built specifically for Connie Kalitta. #1 of 1 built