1979 Ford Mustang - Horse of a Different Color

If you're of a particular vintage and have a proclivity to appreciate automobiles chances are you are have fairly fond feelings of early "Fox-body" Ford Mustangs like our '79 here. I know I do. Especially the legendary 1982-1993 "5.0" models. While they were extremely long in the tooth when Ford finally put them to pasture after 2004, personally, I give them credit for being the cars that started the end of the "Malaise Era" of cars. However, let's be brutally honest, shall we? At the time of it's introduction, the 1979 Mustang seemed like such a watershed automobile mostly because of what it replaced. That being the 1974-1978 Mustang II, the most vilified Ford since the Edsel. 

We can't pin all of the vitriol we have for the Mustang II on the fact that Ford loosely based them on their sub-compact Pinto. You ever drive a Pinto? They handled like go-carts and had grippy brakes like no other domestic at the time. In short, they were a ball to drive. Sure, they were ugly, under-powered and pretty deadly when hit from the rear but they were fun. Save for brakes, steering gear, rear axle and part of it's floor pan, there really wasn't that much Pinto in a Mustang II anyway. But don't blame it's Pinto DNA for the reason the Mustang II was so awful - blame it's styling. Whereas the original Mustang was based on the Ford Falcon, certainly a far cry from a movie star handsome automobile, what Ford's stylists did with the Mustang is the stuff of legend. These things? They're just flat out clumsy looking. And even if they handled like a Pinto, which of course they didn't because they were four to five hundred pounds heavier, that wouldn't be enough to assuage how homely looking they were. 

The Mustang II had a two-inch longer wheelbase than the Pinto and was overall six inches longer so you can't blame the size of the canvas for its design either. Although, perhaps if these cars were generally larger they wouldn't look so darn shrunken. At certain angles in pictures, it's actually not half bad looking. Helps if you blur your vision too. 

You have to give Ford some credit for at least being forward thinking with the Mustang II since planning for it started years before the first gas crisis. By the time the '71 "big" Mustang rolled out, what there was of Mustang's sporty image had all been worn away by competition and insurance surcharges on performance cars making anything deemed "sporty" incarnate evil. In the early '70's imports where gaining more and more traction as well and let's not forget that there was the looming specter of an energy crisis.

At the beginning of the first gas crisis, which all but those who had their heads buried in the proverbial Middle Eastern sand saw coming from miles away, and permanently higher priced gas, the "II" was a smash at the box office. Those buyers looking for an economy car with sporty looks, however, were not "Mustang fans" per se and as soon as the ink dried on newspaper headlines that the embargo was over and that gas prices were going to stabilize, the sales bloom fell off the "II". Cash strapped Ford slogging through the rest of the 1970's with a car emblazoned with a name that little more than a decade prior was emblematic of a Ford Motor Company with nothing but blue skies on its horizons. 

It was pretty obvious right from the start that the new-for-1979 Mustang was literally and figuratively a horse of a different color. While stylistically it was still a far cry from Mustang's of 1964-1970 yore, note how we gently side step the 1971-1973's, it checked all the right boxes on what fans of the literal breed expect from a sporty "pony" car. The fact it actually handled well was like apples and carrots to a hungry foal reared on a diet of dry grass. 

2000 Cadillac Eldorado - When Are You Going To Pick It Up?

I've had my eyes open for one of these Cadillac Eldorado's since they went on sale back in 1992. GM hasn't made them since 2002 so they're getting very rare and the ones I've found up here in Cleveland have been rust buckets so imagine how excited I was when my latest "cheap car search" unveiled this rust-free 2000 "ESC" with just 98,000 miles on it and an asking price of under four-grand. Let's go! 

Sadly, the earliest versions of these cars are actually the ones you want to get your hands on. Those being the ones with the 4.9 liter V-8 engine that started out as the infamous "HT4100" mess than inhaled head gaskets like Cheeto's and couldn't punch a hole in a soaking wet Kleenex. GM eventually worked out most of the kinks and made it into what they should have had from the get go but the problem is the interiors of those 1992 and 1993 4.9 liter versions screams 1980's; GM updated the interior for 1996. Furthermore, just as GM got the old HT4100 right they came out with their "world-beating" Northstar V-8 that while a strong performer out of the box, was just as notorious if not worse than the old HT4100 was for catastrophic failure. However, rumor has it GM fixed those issues come model year 2000. For the record, "Northstar" replaced the old 4.9 in the Eldorado ETC  (Eldorado Touring Coupe) for 1993 and a somewhat less potent version of it was put in place for the "ESC" (Eldorado Sports Coupe) for 1994.  

So, with the improved interior and fortified Northstar this silver fox thought he'd spend an afternoon  after working from home with this silver fox. 

To say I was somewhat dismayed when I realized this car was a good ten footer is an understatement. The driver's door would not close properly without slamming it shut nor was the left side of the hood aligned with the fender properly. Bolts on the top of the fender weren't centered in their holes either - this thing's been in an accident although the CarFax said nothing about one. 

More driver's door shenanigans - there was water in the cutout on the armrest for the door pull and the power lock switch was pushed out behind the bezel. Worse yet, the bezel was loose so it looked like someone had tried to fix it but gave up. Ok. Simple enough stuff. No biggie. Bargaining chips if anything. 

She fired right up and had the smooth, manly growl I love but the check engine light was on. Lovely. Then I noticed the ABS and Traction Control Lights were also on along with the Service Tire Pressure Monitor warning. Oh, brother. And the AC wouldn't blow cold. Another scrolling message on the dash saying that the refrigerant was gone. Thanks for the update. 

Out on the road is where things got really, really bad. The car had no pickup. I mean, none. I told my very nice and accommodating "product specialist" who came with me that the lack of power reminded me of the "HT4100" powered two-ton Cadillac's from the early '80's. I mean, this thing had trouble getting out of first gear! Worse yet, when I'd floor the gas peddle an ominous yet flaccid roar came from the left side of the engine and that damn check engine started blinking. Blinking! That's not good. Suffice to say I'd venture to guess the head gasket or gaskets were gone on this thing. Yes, an engine with a bad head gasket will turn over and run, but with the compression shot in one if not both banks, the engine makes little to no power. If you can find a mechanic who'll do head gaskets on a Northstar you're looking at around seven thousand dollars. Good luck finding a junker to swap and I've yet to see anyone swap a 3800 V-6 into one of these. What a shame. For us fans of these cars there are few other cars like them. 

We limped back into the dealership with the Northstar losing even more power the warmer it got. I swear it had trouble getting up the curb cutout to get into the parking lot. My sales guy telling me that the row of cars this was in was their "auction row" of cars that they don't check anything on. So, at that, four-grand or so was all the money in the world for a worn the hell out old Cadillac that needs just about everything. Even at a thousand dollars this car's a useless money pit. 

He joked through his mask as he elbow bumped goodbye, "so, when are going to pick it up?"

1976 Chevrolet Monza 2+2 - Things Get Worse Before They Get Better

Young and older me has mixed emotions about General Motors new-for-1975 "H-bodies" because I felt they all looked like the Camaro and Firebird's homely half-siblings. Those new "H's" being the Chevrolet Monza 2+2, Oldsmobile Starfire and Buick Skyhawk whom all shared the same chassis, wheelbase and much DNA with, of all things, the Chevrolet Vega.

I'm fairly alone with that sentiment given they were lauded for their styling by the press and even the late, great, John DeLorean whom was such a fan of the Monza 2+2 in particular that he called it an "Italian Vega"; he believed it resembled the lines of a Ferrari GTC\4. Err, if you say so, JD.

Chevrolet also peddled a Monza formal roofed Monza "Town Coupe" that was little more than it was - a portly Vega. Curiously, for 1975, Pontiac didn't get one of the new "H's" but got a Vega clone they called "Astre". More GM oddness, Chevrolet continued to sell the Vega along side the Monza through 1977. Come 1978 the Pontiac Astre was replaced by one of these fastbacks they called "Sunbird".

I can't for the life of me recall why it was I test drove a 1976 Chevrolet Monza "2+2" in the summer of 1983 but I did and I'm half-embarrassed to say that I loved it. Seriously. The handling, the braking, the maneuverability, the power of its factory V-8 engine. Crazy, I know. But understand that I was coming out of a shot-to-death 1974 Mercury Comet and my father's oafish '72 Cadillac so, by comparison, that little Monza was a world class athlete.

Despite everything it had to offer, even if I liked it's styling it was was just too damn small for the macho-man-boy I pretended to be who was dead set on getting a "man's car"; that meaning big. No sub-compact for me, please. Give me beef. And a big, fatty slab of it too. By the way, that big car I eventually got was the automobile love of my life, a...drumroll, please...1975 Chrysler Cordoba. Funny, the older I get, the more youthful my taste in cars has become. Call me Benjamin Button.

If I had to do it all over again, would I have gotten the Monza instead of the Cordoba? Oh, hell no. But I think I'd be far more discriminatory with regards to overall vehicle performance than I was.  Thing is, back in the early '80's, cars that could handle, stop and really go were few and far between. Throw in a car that had to be "cool" and that narrowed choices more so. Today it's a beautiful thing that performance is a commodity but back in the early '80's, the only things that a kid could afford that could do anything where small cars that were, for the most part, under powered and Ford Pinto dowdy. Say what you will, my Cordoba guzzled cool as much as it guzzled gas. If you found a Chevrolet Monza cool you'd have to explain why it was to someone. And once you start explaining you're losing.

To this day I've never warmed to these cars although I do recall fondly the seat-of-the-pants thrill of that little Monza stuffed with a V-8. Imagine if it had the Wankel. I'm a little dismayed to read contemporary road test reviews of the Monza V-8 and find it did zero to sixty in almost thirteen and half seconds. I guess I had an even more impoverished childhood than I thought possible.

GM ditched the Vega after 1977 and they built these through 1980. There was no 1981 model as GM cleared showroom space for a spring 1981 introduction of the 1982 front-wheel-drive "J-bodies" flag-shipped by the Chevrolet Cavalier and of course, the Cadillac Cimarron.

Whomever it was who first said that things get worse before they get better really knew what they were talking about. 

Toyota Solara Convertible - Alta Cocker

Seeing that for all intents and purposes my favorite vehicle type is all but none existent these days, it would have been somewhat fitting had I been run over by the Florida tagged, red, 2004-2008 Toyota Solara convertible driven by an Alta Cocker in the parking lot of the open-air mall near our home the other day. For the record, if I was to be taken out by a personal luxury car I would prefer it to be a 1970's Chrysler Cordoba, Chevrolet Monte Carlo or Pontiac Grand Prix. It was a gorgeous albeit somewhat chilly summer day and Grand Pa, decked out in a golf attire, rolled through the crosswalk oblivious to the signs warning motorists to stop for pedestrians. What's more, with the top and windows up and no doubt the Tony Bennet wafting through his cabin, he didn't hear my profanity laced tirade that bounced off the over styled body of his Solara.

Incidentally, "Alta Cocker" is a Yiddish expression often used in a derogatory manner to describe people of a certain age. Usually an old man. My apologies for perpetuating stereo types but if the moob-hugging golf shirt fits so be it.

Yeah, yeah. We all make unconscious mistakes every now and then and cutting Grand Pa some slack, he probably was completely unaware that he nearly killed someone. Or at least injured them severely. I'll apologize for my public display of profanity, it's just when it comes to my life and limb I tend to get a little heated under the collar when some out-of-towner in a clown car almost impales me with its front end.

Despite the fact they check nearly every box on cars I hold near and dear, I've never been a fan of the Toyota Solara. Especially these "second generation" 2004-2008 models. Toyota pushed out these Camry-based coupes between 1999 and 2008 in two "generations".

The half-baked 1999-2003 models (above) are fairly interesting with their tops down much in the same way an early '70's GM "B-body" convertible does but with the top up forget it. Forget the fixed roof versions too.

These 2004-2008's look like they got caught in a taffy pull and lost. Especially the convertibles where the lack of a fixed roof makes the rear end hang out like an overweight person who's sans pantaloons. Yes, there was a coupe version as well that's only marginally less zaftig looking.

The Solara wasn't Toyota's first foray into the world of a two-door Camry. Back in 1993, Toyota offered a coupe version of their then new Camry but it was really nothing more than what it was; a Camry for  people, err, like me, who wouldn't be caught dead in a four-door sedan. Well, the problem was, as you can see, it was nothing more than a Camry four-door with two less doors. This one here even has a spoiler to tempt me even more.

When Toyota relaunched Camry for 1997 there was, mercifully, no coupe version but the first Solara, above, rolled out two seasons later. An at the time the Japanese answer to the Oldsmobile Cutlass that no one was asking for. Well, some asked and those quickly found that sliver of buyers.

Solara convertible sales were so bad back in the day that Toyota had a two year overstock of the blasted things; as late as 2010 you could still buy a "new" 2008 Solara. Seeing that Toyota hasn't made the Solara in twelve years, the mere concept of a four-passenger coupe or convertible seems as outdated as a typewriter or a VCR. The idea had its fans in the 2000's but here at the beginning of the not-so-roaring 2020's, these types of cars are dinosaurs driven apparently by living fossils. Look, I ain't no kid so I get it. I drive a 2002 Chevrolet Monte Carlo.

I quickly gained my composure and shrugged off my near death experience although I was embarrassed as I always am at my Turret's syndrome like tendency to bark out profanity when I'm startled. In hindsight I don't think it was thatclose; I think his oblivion to his surroundings is what annoyed me most. I've never been the most understanding of clutzy, clueless "elders" and I've long believed folks should be road-tested as they get older. Statistically, the youngest and oldest of driver's are the most likely to be involved in accidents. These days, the young simply don't drive and some older drivers are an out and out nuisance.

The fact that today there are no four-passenger convertibles that are even remotely affordable put a chill down my spine as well. Not for the fact that I would want one, but it was telling that a vehicle type that was somewhat of a mainstay of my childhood, you know, the "family-sized" convertible not to mention the personal luxury car that could sit a young family comfortably, has become extinct. Except of course for well-preserved examples like the one that Alta Cocker drove, made me feel old and out of sync with current trends and morays.

Slipping behind the wheel of my nineteen-year old Chevrolet Monte Carlo didn't make me feel any hipper or younger. Granted, I quickly shrugged it off like I did my near death experience but still. No one likes to feel older than they are. 

1973 Chevrolet Corvette 454 "Barn Find" - Hide My Checkbook

 

The third generation or what is now known colloquially as the "C3" Chevrolet Corvette is as famous for perpetuating if not embodying and exacerbating a certain stereotype as it is for it's "Flash Gordon" plastic body. To us fans of them we often times find ourselves rowing against preconceived notions exhausting ourselves as we attempt to defend our vehicle choices to those who think we're having some sort of mid-life crisis. Even within the comforts of the like minded there's lively discussion about whether the early "3's" were better than later models. Which takes us to our "bard find", 1973 454, 4-speed car here I found for sale on Craigslist. If ever if there was a car caught in between, it's a 1973 Corvette.

What makes the '73's unique from other "C3's" is their bumpers. Sound trivial? Not really when it comes to early to mid 1970's cars sold in the United States. Starting in 1973, all new vehicles sold  here were required to have bumpers that could withstand a five-mile per hour impact without the vehicle suffering any damage. Again, that might sound inconsequential but the end result was often times garish chrome logs that seemed like afterthoughts on existing designs. On the 1973 Corvette, Chevrolet covered up the front bumper with a rubberized polyurethane housing. While many would say that it worked aesthetically, much like today's cars, these bumper covers can't withstand the impact of a slow moving child's bicycle without requiring surgery and a total respray. Somehow they were federally compliant. While the mandate called for the safety-bumpers on the rear of cars come 1974, the rear end of cars was exempt for 1973. Thus, the 1973 Corvette has a rubber nose and the '68-'72 Corvette's delicate and equally useless dual chrome rear bumper.

No. That will not buff out. And you either love the '73's or you're at best ambivalent towards them. Personally, I'm not a fan of the party up front business in back or vice versa mantra going on with the '73's. I'm an all or nothing kind of girl preferring the small bumperette '68-'72's or even the 1974 - 1982's with their fully covered bumpers. Any charms of the imbalanced design of the '73's is lost on me. While the '73 Corvettes have their fans, apparently I'm not alone with my malaise either given that values of '73's are a good third less than '68-'72's. Yes, values of the '73's are a good third more than anything after 1973 but less is still less.

Which takes us back to our '73 bard find here. Now, the owner or the lister of this car  wouldn't be the first person to think they were sitting on a pot of gold with their old car but let's be reasonable. Yes, it's a 1973 Corvette with a 4-speed and 454 but...it...needs...everything. Body work, paint, engine, interior, suspension. With any old car it's always best to buy a restored car than to buy a basket case (like this) and fund the resto yourself because you'll never get your money back on it. Or even come close to breaking even. And in the case of this thing, the point of entry is so out of this world ridiculous that you might as well move onto something else. In fact, anything else.

Sidebar - being the proud owner of a 1977 "C3" that's currently not road-going, not piling stuff on top of it as a makeshift shelf takes some discipline. So, to that end I understand the stuff on the car but only to a point. This isn't the first old car on CL I've seen that's for sale that's also been turned into a makeshift junk drawer. Or table.

The good here is this is a 1973 Corvette with a 454 and a 4-speed. The bad is the that's about the only thing this has going for it. If you're wondering, it's been repainted in the 1978 twenty-fifth anniversary Corvette color scheme. Makes no sense here in 2020 but doing my best to look at this car through a late '70's lens, the paint job must have been an attempt to update the look of it; the older chrome bumper Corvette's, even the '73's, looking old and stale in comparison to the later models.  Oh, did I mention this thing also hasn't run since the first term of the Clinton administration?

I love the Trumpian hubris of some Craiglist and Facebook Marketplace listings and this listing is right up there. The owner claiming that in Hemmings Motors News these big block cars are selling for between thirty-five and eighty-five thousand and that's why he doesn't want to hear from you if you're not coming with an offer of at least twenty-grand. Somebody, please, hide my checkbook.

Much has been said about cars in the early 1970's losing much of their punch having their compression ratios hacked so they could run smoothly on no-lead gas and emission plumbing robbing horsepower as well. That's true  to a some extent but Chevrolet was able to keep the horsepower and torque thieves away with the 454 engine they put in the 1973 Corvette.

The beast that was RPO code "LS4" was still knocking down two-hundred seventy five horsepower and three-hundred ninety-five foot pounds of torque in 1973. Those are net numbers too. While the mighty LS7 454 available in the 1970 was rated at four-hundred sixty horsepower, keep in mind that's a gross horsepower rating. Starting in 1972 manufacturers went to net horsepower ratings which were approximately forty percent less than the gross ratings. So, subtract forty-percent off the the mighty "LS7" and we get...two-hundred seventy six.

If you're interested here's the listing. Ask them if for an opening bid of twenty-grand if they'll throw in all the junk. 

1969 Ford LTD - Small Town USA

I think I find this 1969 Ford LTD appealing because it looks like something GM could have done. It's currently for sale at the same Ford dealership that the only buyer it's ever had bought it from back in 1969. Only in small town USA. 

Up until 1978 all big Ford's and Mercury's rode on the same chassis that was new for model year 1965. Those big Lincoln Continental's with the "suicide-doors" didn't share the chassis until 1970. Ford sliced, diced, kneaded and bobbed the design constantly no doubt to stay at least in pace with General Motors incessant changes. The end result being the oafish LTD of 1974 through 1978. infamy. I've said many times before that with the rarest of exceptions designs don't get better looking the more the designers futz with it. To be fair, GM's big bumper, pillared sedans from 1974-1976 where pretty god awful too. Ford sorta, kinda got it right for a brief while with these tasty designs.

Well, as right as Ford got things back then. Save for a Mustang or Thunderbird here and there, they didn't do much right design wise in the thirty plus years after World War II. That period of form over function coming to a screeching halt with the Great Downsizing Epoch that GM started in 1977. Sorry, Ford's 1979-2011 "Panther" LTD\Crown Victoria's never rowed my land yacht. To give credit where it's due, I'm also a big fan of the 1968-1969 Mercury Cougar, the Continental Mark's II-V and 1966-1967 Continental's but I'm focusing on Ford's today and not FoMoCo's myriad other divisions.

The Ford LTD, just like the Chevrolet Caprice, was a bit of an odd duck seeing that it portended to be a luxury car. What started out as a trim level on the 1965 Galaxie, it became it's own model line come 1966. Again, very similar to what Chevrolet did with the Caprice as Carpice was at first a trim level of the Impala before superseding it. The LTD luxury aura wasn't really slathered on until these all-new-for-1969 models rolled out complete with vacuum actuated head light doors. You know a car is luxurious when the headlights are covered. So, if the Ford Motor Company's least expensive division was selling a rather well equipped luxury model what was left for Mercury and Lincoln to peddle?

Oddly enough, while Mercury got a retooled Marquis for 1969, that, subjectively, lacks any of the clumsy charms our Ford LTD here has and could be construed as it's homely sibling, Lincoln didn't get a new Continental until 1970. And as bad-ass as those cars were, well, the hard-top two-door models where, they were really nothing more than gussied up LTD's. In a world where you would think riches would trickle down, the bubbling up of luxury must have been a stretch for many a Lincoln faithful. Especially after nearly a decade of the uniquely wonderful suicide-door Continental.

Our subject here hails from lovely Marion, Ohio. Marion is one of those irrepressible small towns in north-central Ohio, maybe an hour or so northwest of Columbus, where everyone knows everyone, nobody locks their front door, everyone goes to church on Sunday, all the boys are handsome, the girls are all pretty and everyone who was born there lives there and dies there. Even those who stray off and go to school at Ohio State or Ohio University come back because the cost of living and the wholesomeness of the lifestyle is just so gosh darn good. If they don't come back at first after school they do eventually.

The online ads for it make no bones about the odometer rolling over; it reads 39,000 + now. Back in the olden days odometers only had five digits because one-hundred thousand miles on a car was an unfathomable distance for an automobile to travel. And a mark of shame for their owner if they drove something "that old". Over the years the interior and the top had been handsomely redone. The paint is original. Sadly, no pictures of the Ford "FE" 390 V-8 appear in the ad. Asking price is a tad high at $9,986 but reasonable for a time capsule in this sort of condition. Any full-size GM two-door of this vintage in this shape would have two to three times the asking price. The reasons for that I will have to drill into in a subsequent blog dedicated exclusively to that subject.

You have to wonder what will become of big, old-school American iron like this seeing that kids today have so little interest in cars in general to say nothing of ill-performing old barges like this. I'm lucky that my older son is somewhat interested in cars but you just know some guy in his fifties is going to swoop in and grab this. Maybe for less than the asking price. Let's hope so. My son wouldn't be caught dead in this. 

2003 Mercedes Benz SL500 - Her Sweet Siren Charms

 

I don't think I want to know anyone who would be immune to the allure and the charms of a Mercedes-Benz' SL. An automobile in any of its various iterations that has a mystique, in my humble opinion, far more magnetic than just about anything this side of a Ferrari or Lamborghini. Corvette? Please. Even the "C8" is a boy racer in comparison even to an aging lion like this 2003 SL500 although it is a far superior automobile.

Mercedes-Benz doesn't change their preeminent two-passenger sports car with "planned obsolescence" in mind. Since the legendary gullwing SL300 of 1954 debuted they've only rebooted it seven times with each new model a seismic improvement over the watershed model it replaced. The 2003 SL was Mercedes-Benz' first new SL since the game-changing 1989 model and was a remarkable advancement in terms of engineering and after more than a decade of cold, austere block-like designs across their entire range, aesthetics.

So, forgive my wife and I for whimsically dreaming about purchasing this 2003 SL500 that's for sale near my office in bucolic Youngstown, Ohio with an asking price a, ahem, mere thirteen-thousand five hundred dollars. Keep in mind that this stickered for nearly ninety-grand when new. Holy depreciation, Batman.

If you seriously consider thirteen-five "mere" money then you are truly fortunate especially seeing that this seventeen year old car is rapidly going on being eighteen. Although it has only sixty-five thousand on her majestic Teutonic heart and later examples of the same car are listing for twice the asking price, this could be a good deal. Could. Be. The asking price is still high enough to make diving into it a bad idea if anything were to go wrong with it. And with any old car not to mention an old Mercedes, there's plenty that can go wrong. This car not unlike buying a cheap fixer-upper in Youngstown; cost of repairs could easily exceed the cost of the house itself.

Even doing the work myself would get expensive. For instance, an Arnot Industries remanufactured body control strut runs seven-hundred and fifty bucks at Autozone. Yes, at Autozone! Of course these are special electro-mechanical struts with some sort of space-age magnetic hydraulic fluid that plug into a central computer all in the interest of making the driver better but really are there to semi-automate the driving experience. And, again, seeing how old this car is now, what happens to all that gee-whiz stuff when it starts to get old? Well, it needs to be replaced and, again, many replacement parts are very, veddy expensive.

This car has an available four year warranty too but those can get really pricey and I've been burned by them in the past. They're usually not backed by the manufacturer which means you're at the whim of the insurance company to cover the costs of repairs. And they're not in the business of paying for anything and everything customers bring in for service either. One time the company I bought an extended warranty from went belly-up too. Thanks, but no thanks. Word to the wise, avoid after market extended warranties. If you get a warranty on a used car best bet is to make sure it's factory backed.

From a seat of the pants perspective, the numbers on this car aren't that impressive either by today's standards. Forty-four hundred pounds hauled around by only a five liter V-8 with a piddling three-hundred and two horsepower V-8. Don't get me wrong, back in the day those were mouth wateringly exotic numbers but in an age now where speed is a commodity zero to sixty in six point one seconds just ain't gonna do it. Gas mileage is SUV terrible too and you have to consider the hassle of putting up with a car that carries just two-passengers and has very little trunk space when the oh-so-sexy clamshell top is retracted. There's not much room there when the top is up too. By the way, none of the pictures in the ad for it had the top down. What's up (or not down) with that?

And what's with the AMG badges? 2003 SL500's that were AMG's were actually SL550's and came with a heavy breathing turbo boosting horsepower to four-hundred and sixty-nine and torque swelled to five-hundred and sixteen foot pounds. They also had "V8COMPRESSOR" badges above the gills on the front fenders, could go zero to sixty in four point six seconds (that's more like it) and top out of two-hundred and eight miles per hour. THIS here ain't no AMG, she's a poser. Which on some level is sexy in and of itself. A saucy girl who pretends to be something she's not? You kidding me? Let's go!

Still, the other day I couldn't resist her sweet siren charms and I went to take a look at her in the flesh. Or sheet metal. There she sat seeming a whole lot less sexy and glamorous in the pot-holed lot of the dealership on a muggy, rainy afternoon in god-forsaken Youngstown, Ohio. Reminded me of meeting aging rock stars back in the day - sort of wrinkly, overtly flawed and...ordinary. A scratch or two here and there. She looked all of her seventeen-years rather than the economically prudent perfection we see under the  florescent light-bulb lit studio photos in the on-line ads. And the first thing I noticed was the driver's door window was closed on top of the weather stripping instead of being inside it. Damn me for not photographing that. Certainly not the most expensive thing to fix on a Mercedes, not the least expensive either, but seeing our date started out on that foot I pulled my mask off immediately and all but jogged back to my car and drove off before any sales person had a chance to  come and talk to me.

A check of the available online Carfax revealed that two of her four owners had been involved in accidents bad enough that they appeared on the report. The Carfax "Car Fox" mascot recommending that whom ever buys the car have it inspected by an auto body expert. I'll say.