I'm not exactly a literary person, but one of the joys of my '96 SL500 is the almost bottomless reserve of power and the responsiveness of the transmission. It is effortless in traffic and very nice on the highway, but it does a total mood change when you hit the gas hard. I just can't imagine it being the same car without the power.

Also, I have generally gotten 15-16 mpg in town and mid 20's on trips.

Supposedly, from a driver's persective, the best years for the 129 5.0's were 1997 and 1998. According the the "experts". those years had the higher-output engine, and problems of the new drive train were mostly sorted out.

My point is that you can find high mileage examples of these cars for not a lot more money than you were considering here.

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Chuck Taylor
Falls Church VA
'66 200, '66 230SL, '96 SL500. Sold: '81 380SL, '86 300E, '72 250C, '95 C220, 3 '84 280SL's '90 420SEL, '72 280SE, '73 280C, '78 280SE, '70 280SL, '77 450SL, '85 380SL, '87 560SL, '85 380SL, '72 350SL, '96 S500 Coupe