The Banana came with some of the previous owner’s documentation. There were service records from about 2014, and records of the original purchase, but nothing much about the first ten years of service.
The car was purchased by an (apparently) very successful Beverly Hills plastic surgeon. He seems to have collected a number of classic cars, including an 300SL gullwing, but he sold it and bought a different one because the first one was too nice to drive.
I like him already.
In reading through the paperwork, I was surprised to see the total cost of all the options. The base car was $141,000 and was bought in Tampa, Florida, but there were a number of upgrades made as well.
The Kicherer SLR-style hood was a $14,000 upgrade, and the AMG factory modified exhaust system was $15,000. The other costs such as the carbon fiber interior, panoramic side mirrors, Bluetooth and trunk spoiler bought the total cost to $198,237.
My handy-dandy online inflation calculator says that money is worth over $300,000 in 2022 dollars.
So, I’ve given up on getting any kind of answer out of NC DMV as to why they won’t accept the title for The Banana without a notarized signature, so it is on its way back to California.
I was so looking forward to driving it this weekend, so perhaps next.
I got a text from the driver that the SL55 would arrive around 7:30 pm.
Since I figured they would be in a semi-tractor trailer, I suggested we meet at the nearby Lowes Home Improvement center instead of my house. While there is room on the farm for a semi, it would be hard to turn around and this would just make it easier.
At the advice of the seller, I used T&J Auto Transport and I was very happy with their service.
I had it shipped to North Carolina from California in an enclosed trailer, and as you can see from the video the car was pretty well protected during the trip. I could not convince the driver to drop off the other cars, however.
The car arrived a bit dirty, and with zero gasoline, so my first stop was to fill it up. Also, the auxiliary battery was drained, so the top wouldn’t go down, but by the time I turned on to my road it had charged enough that the last two miles were driven as a convertible. I had the same issue when I got my first SL55 but a few sessions on a CTEK charger fixed that.
Overall the car is as promised. There is a ding on the back bumper and some scrapes on the front air dam. There is also “clear bra” protection film on the front, part of the rear and behind the door handles that wasn’t noticeable on the pictures (although it was mentioned in the auction description) and I’m not sure if I’m keeping it. It isn’t up to the standards that I like to keep my cars as far as detailing, but that is part of the fun.
It is due for a Service B (based on time, not mileage) so I plan to schedule that for September.
This car has a custom exhaust, and oh my does it sound nice. I just hope we get the license plate issue sorted out so I can get it registered and start driving it.
The Banana is supposed to arrive tonight, so I wanted to go get it registered and get a tag for it.
It was not to be.
The seller had sent me the title and usually it is a simple process to register the car, but when I got to the DMV they wouldn’t accept it as it wasn’t notarized.
There was a space for a notary to sign that was blank, so I reached out to the seller who pointed out that in Montana, where the car was registered, a notary is not required if the seller is a company (in this case, an LLC).
I showed this to the folks at the DMV office, and they told me they had to consult a book published by the NADA, and that book did not include the company exception.
I knew better than to fight with the DMV (it’s really not the fault of the folks in the registration office, but DMV administration) so I posted an angry tweet and chatted with the seller, who said they could get it notarized.
It’s past the cut-off for overnight letters so I’ll send it off tomorrow and wait for it to come back and I’ll try again.
Okay, I honestly didn’t expect to be bidding on this auction much less winning it. As I mentioned before I expected this car to go for north of $60K and that was more than I was willing to pay.
Yesterday I noticed that there was less than a day left in the auction, so I set an alarm on my watch for 2pm and promptly forgot about it. I was actually on a call with most of my coworkers when the alarm went off, so I had to bring the auction up, discreetly, on my phone. I was surprised to see it was still lower than the $30,500 I paid for The Shark, so on a whim I put in a bid of $31,000.
I bid a couple of more times, again pretty much just for fun, when the seller announced that the reserve was off. I put in a final bid of $37,000 and, after the longest two minutes of my life, I won the auction.
Wow, I didn’t expect that.
I reached out to the seller (who had listed over 700 cars on BaT so I assumed they would be professional) and we started working out the logistics for payment and shipping.
I then had to go and tell my wife, who surprisingly just laughed. She later came into my office and asked to see the car, and when it popped up on the screen she laughed some more and said it looked like a big banana.
Ever since I bought The Shark (a 2003 SL55) I’ve had a notification set up to let me know when any R230 Mercedes cars are put up for auction on BaT. I was in LA for a work assignment when I happened to look at my phone to see “Original-Owner 2005 Mercedes-Benz SL55 AMG” as the subject in the e-mail.
This was a little newer than The Shark but still a year too early for that sweet spot of the post-facelift 2006-2007 SL55. Anyway, since I block remote images in my e-mails I hit “load images” to check it out, and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
A yellow SL55.
I love yellow on a sports car, even more than red. To my knowledge they didn’t make a yellow SL55, but apparently there is at least one.
Reading more about the car, it started to tick even more boxes.
One owner? Check.
All options? Check.
Performance upgrades? Check.
Like The Shark, this SL was fully loaded with features like the Panoramic Roof and Distronic. Unlike The Shark, it had 52,000 miles on it versus 18,000, so I would expect more paint chips and more wear. Still, 52k miles over 17 years is just a little over 3000 miles per year, and that isn’t bad. With cars like this it is probably best to have one that has been more routinely driven.
The other issues with the car included an accident in 2021, but from the pictures it looks like that has been repaired. From the auction comments there have been around four R230s in Yellowstone, but that includes the SL65 versions as well. I was only able to find one SL55 referenced on the internet, a yellow over red version that doesn’t work as well for me as the yellow over black.
The commenters also seemed divided on the SLR-style hood. I think it looks pretty cool, but many said it made the SL55 look more like an SLK, and there is some validity to that argument. Still for pretty much a one-off car I was very interested in it, and since I was in LA (where the car was located) I reached out to the seller to see about an in-person visit. Unfortunately, I only had Sunday afternoon available and they weren’t going to be around then.
I figured that this car would go for the $60K to $70K range. The most expensive SL55 I’d seen sell on BaT was a 2005 red over red with 25k miles, and I thought because of this car’s uniqueness it would trade in that range, and that was more than I wanted to pay for it.
Okay. I’m older, and so it is time to get the sports car.
In all seriousness, I have been into cars since I was young and I’ve always wanted to buy a performance automobile. But I am also cheap, and so I like to get a good deal.
A friend of mine has turned me on to a website called Bring a Trailer (BaT). Apparently it started out as a blog about cool cars for sale on eBay, and it has grown into the leading online auction site for classic and collectable cars.
Of call the cars I’ve owned, I’ve really enjoyed the convertibles. I had a yellow 1978 MGB that I put nearly 60,000 miles on in three years (driving it cross country twice) and I still think yellow is the best color for a sports car, as well as a black 1986 Alfa Romeo Spider Veloce. I’ve also owned a number of Mercedes sedans (mainly W108s), with the most modern car being a 2004 C230 Sport.
The only known picture of my yellow MGB, taken in 1984 at the Golden Gate Bridge.
My wife doesn’t like convertibles, which puts me in a quandary, as unless it is raining or snowing the top is always down on my cars. I don’t really like the look of convertibles with the top up, so I wanted a car with a retractable hard top. Thus when the top is up it will look like it isn’t a convertible, but when I’m in it the top can be quickly lowered.
The earliest hard top convertible I know about is the Ford Fairlane Skyliner, but there have been others since. The one I always desired was the Mercedes SL, an S-Class high performance roadster. The models that have depreciated the most are the fourth generation SL, those from 2002-2008, known as the R230.
I ended up buying a 2003 Mercedes SL55 AMG, in silver over charcoal with just over 18,000 miles, that I won on a BaT auction.
I love the look of Mercedes racing silver, and I ended up calling this car The Shark. It was a solid buy, with basically one owner, low miles and all available options.
There is a great book on the R230 available digitally on Amazon for $10 that I can highly recommend. I learned from that book that the 2003 model year was the highest production year for the car (it was introduced in 2002 in Europe but 2003 in the US) and that silver and black are the most common colors. For the 2003 models there were 14 different color options and three of them were various shades of black and four of them were shades of silver.
Now silver over red is the classic 300SL color and I would probably have been satisfied if that was the color for The Shark, so I’ve been curious to see what other color options might show up for sale.
As I was to find out, there was one in particular I wanted.
