Black & Blue Custom Benz Will Certainly Spark Any Purist’s Rage
SL55 AMG is one of the best bargain-per-horsepower cars around, but does this Craiglist find deserve any love?
The Mercedes M113 engine is a 5.5-liter supercharged V8 and one hell of an engine. As close as you’ll get to bulletproof while, in the early years of this century, also pushing out close to 500 horsepower and 520 lb-ft of torque. While the term “German muscle car” never does any Mercedes justice, AMG or not, it’s hard to deny the SL55 AMG has plenty of muscle. It’s also a luxurious beauty with the folding hardtop up or down. However, this 2003 SL 55 AMG Craigslist find has us sitting on the fence due to the smoked light lenses all the way around.
We are down with that satin blue wrap, but the original white would go a lot better with the gray interior. Of course, that’s a matter of preference, along with running the chrome-lipped black HRE wheels. We love its poise lowered by 2 inches, but the seller doesn’t mention who did the work or what suspension it now actually has. The advert says, “Custom suspension lowers 2 inches with button” so we can probably assume it’s now on airbags.
We definitely appreciate a set of Brembo calipers though, and AMG high Flow Cats, although we very much doubt they are solely responsible for the claimed 60 horsepower bump. We do know it’s relatively simple to get more horses out of the M113K though, so that bump isn’t unrealistic. The price could be unrealistic as, right now, we’re seeing same model years with almost half the 95,000 miles on this one for a lot less than the $25,000 the seller wants.
We suspect he or she just put the cost of his modifications on the book price and, as much fun as it is to see what people are doing with their Mercedes, this is a case of it probably being better to find a clean and well-maintained stock SL55 AMG and building it out exactly to your own taste. Think twice about blacking out all the lights though, eh?
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