Post '85, the glut of electronics and other stuff that can't be fixed but only replaced AT GREAT COST makes the rep of Mercedes as a "20 year car" moot. In the future, some electronic and other service components will simply cease to be available, which will make depreciation of whatever value is retained immediate and precipitous.

If you look at the great automobiles of the classic era...Locomobile, Silver Ghost Rolls, Packard, Pierce-Arrow, etc....the fact that they were expensive was a function of the fact that they were expected to last about as long as a house. Auto historian Richard Burns Carson refers to the '38 Cadillac as "...the world's first disposable luxury car." Post '85 MBs depart from the honorable "value added" approach which resulted in almost "permanant" cars (Henry Leland's phrase). Now they're just jumped-up sucker bait, built to a price (with a huge profit margin built in) not THAT much better than an Accord or Camry.