amgv8

FYI -

This is a picture of the FexEx Championship C43 car that was on display at MBUSA in the summer of 2000 at the company picnic in Montvale, NJ.

Mike

FLYNAVY

cool pic, thanks for sharing! Got any more "vintage" pics?

svt ricco

does it have any mods?

C43AMG

*****ty paintjob

SeeKlasse

are u sure youve got a 2000 c43? those things are rare as hell.... send a pic of the interior!

2PHAST

There was a few of these in the US as pace cars etc. None were allowed into private hands, when MB was finished with them, they were sold to wreckers who were under strict orders to dismantle the cars.

C43AMG

Great way to ruin a nice car.

FLYNAVY

uhhhh....why did they do that? That is the most bizarre thing I've ever heard...

RevoWution

Not a big fan of the paint job to the rims, but the body looks pretty mean!

Nevertheless, it is a C43, so it must be a beauty! :P

2PHAST

These cars (like the C36 pace cars) were not DOT street legal, so could not be legally sold. I do know of one c43 that was saved, not sure how they managed to get it, nor get it federalized, of course, that claim could be complete BS, don't believe any actual proof was provided except for a few pictures (showing the c43 is a home garage)

If I remember correctly, some had yellow lights on them, plus they had brembo brakes installed. No performance modifications or other suspension modifications.

amgv8

Pics of my 2000 C43 can be seen here:

http://2000c43amg.homestead.com

Mike

Kropf

There was a black with black interior posted at least a couple times on eBay that apparently sold on 7/19/2007 - VIN WDBHA33GXYF899807.
And another black with silver/black interior is currently listed - VIN WDBHA33G4YF894506.

Yes, I've previously seen that 2000 C43 production for USA Shipment was 25. Mike (amgv8 here, and 92W201 at benzworld.org) ought to know. He's the one that while working at MBUSA posted those stats and more.
Does that include the off-road pace cars, etc.?

But what's different in the interior other than the back of the steering wheel for the tiptronic paddles?

I also find it interesting that MBUSA doesn't include the C43 on their 2000 web page like the earlier years.

2PHAST

There are no tiptronic paddle options on the C class, for model year 2000, you get the ability to shift individual gears by using the shift lever, by moving it left you down shift, right you upshift

CynCarvin32

The C43 pace car I went it at Long Beach and PIR were basically stock cars painted to be pace cars. The one in that photo has stock brakes and suspension. Some had a roll cage installed however. The C36 (lime green) I went it before that was modded with suspension mods, extremely loud exhaust, roll cage, etc.

Back in the days when CART was a racing serious and people actually watched the races.

SeeKlasse

Actually i wanted a pic of the interior because i wanted to see the shifter. the 2000's dont have the maze you have to work the shifter through like the 98's and 99's they do straight down to "D" and theres a - and + at the sides. this denotes the one and only distinctive difference between the 2000 c43 and all the rest.

amgv8

Here's a picture of my 2000 C43 shift lever with Touchshift.

Some other differences in the 2000 model were the five-star wheels and the standard avant-garde grille.

Kropf

AHHhh!!! Thanks to both!

The 1st eBay listing I mentioned had Chrome 5 spokes, avant-garde grill (without the big star), and original looking front lights. The current eBay listing has painted 5 spokes, and looks like a different grill, head, and corner lamps. Also noticed that the plastic grill over the two electric fans is missing. Would be simple to restore this one to factory original, but I'd hate to have to drill holes in the front bumper for a NY license plate.
Both have a flat hood emblem whereas Mike's has the classic one.

Looking closely, I can see both have Touch Shift.

Hummmm... Many times I'd like to just bump it down a gear, but unsure of which gear I was currently in. Now that I need to replace my broken '99 C43 tranny, and learning this and seeing it, I'm really intrigued!
Checking both 2000 VINs in WIS, it appears that both would use the same 722.631 transmission as my '99, correct?

If so, I wonder what all would be needed to convert/upgrade to the Touch Shift?

Substance

there is also one listed on autotrader.com black with 56k miles no options. asking 23900$

amg 170 (five-star) wheels are factory original for 2000. they are 22lbs each vs 30+ mono IIs.

S600 (avantgarde) grill is factory original.

teleaid system with sos button next to the rear view mirror. information and mechanic buttons inside the armrest. useless see below for why

small antenna on the rear center part of the roof. its a radio&gps&phone antenna combined. GPS ability is due to teleaid where mb needs to locate your car in emergency. its useless now. its analog, mb wont upgrade it to digital nor activate it even if u are willing to pay for it.

touch-shift tranny with P R N + D - and the cluster has the read out next to the clock showing what gear you are in( i dont know if 99 and 98 has this) this is same as 2000 C230 and C280.

hood badge is the classic 3point star( not a flat badge) same as 99 and 98
there are side badge which reads "sport" or "avantgarde" i am not sure which amgv8 can correct me.

The tranny has a different tcu mapping which yields longer tranny life.

accourding to MB C43 shares the same transmition as SL500. What confuses me is that r129 SL continued production till 2002 and w202 ended in 2000. MB decided to put the touch shift in 2000 eventhough they only made 100 or less worldwide and touch-shift never made it to r129 SL which is the flagship model of MB. if its the same tranny why in c43 and why not SL500 or SL600. there was also a very limited production SL55AMG r129 it didnt have touchshift either nor SL73 or SL60.

Kropf

For sure, the '99 C280 and C43 do not, and I'm quite sure that the '98s don't either.

ProjectC55

From what I understand,the touch shift mod can be done to 98,99 C43 cars and it's not a hard mod to do at all. This comes from the mechanic who dropped the 5.5L motor in my car.

It's just that for me and my purposes the mod is not necessary but I think it's nice.

If I'm pushed I may go ahead and do it just for kicks.

Substance

the touch-shift on w202 is very primative. it takes a lot of time to get used to it. upshifts are fine but you have to know when and how you can downshift. first of all, you have to figure out what gear the car is in then shift down to that gear D 4 3 are fine if you want to gear down to 2 or 1 or you have to develop some reflexes. for example you have to hit gas at the same time you gear down to 2 otherwise the car will shake badly. you can also guess that this tranny is pretty slow but due to the fact that its at least 8 years old its pretty fast for its age. no speedshift for C43 either.


I think touch-shift on models after 2005 and on are pretty good. when you pull the knob to yourself it downshifts 1 gear down from what gear the car is currently in. and when you push to the opposite side it will upshift from what gear the car is in at that point. there is the manual mode it will stick to your gear selection even if you hit the redline. the one on w202 decides itself if you do something silly. manual mode also tells you what geat the car is currently in. when the car comes to complete stop, you have to pull the lever 4 times to set it to gear 1 for w202 (D 4 3 2 1) but the new touchshift are already set to 1 at launch. and the speedshift makes it 35 percent faster.



i am guessing all these updates above are just software, i dont know if the w202 transmition can accomadate the same software, if it can i dont know if anybody can program it.

as i said the old w202 touchshift is very primative , i would suggest you give a try before you the mods, you may not like it at first after a few hours of driving and you start feeling the nature of it you start to enjoy it.

amgv8

Substance, you are right about the Touchshift change that occurred in 2005, but I would not characterize it as the previous version being inferior. Rather it was like this:
Pre 2005 behavior: The Touchshift behavior was to alway shift to the next sequential gear (left touch=down, right touch=up), so that you would go from D-4-3-2-1 and 1-2-3-4-D. It was very predictable. When I would head into a favorite turn in a pre-2005 Touchshift car, I would give it two slaps to the left in order to take the turn in 3rd gear and accelerate through the turn.

Then when I got my 2005 ML, I went into that same turn and did the same thing but the vehicle downshifted lower than I wanted it to, and the revs were way too high. I was surprised when this happened. At first I thought it was a defect. I could no longer shift down from D-4-3-2-1 at idle, as you describe. I took it back to the dealer to report the problem. The service rep was clueless. I later had an argument with one of our engineers at MBUSA for not announcing the change in behavior for 2005-on. It was a philosophical difference in how the shifting would work. I thought it was wrong to change the behavior without somehow making it known to the public (and to MBUSA employees too!), but he was arrogant about it.

2005-> behavior: Now when you move the lever to the left to downshift, it will shift down exactly one gear <begin italics>from whatever gear the transmission happens to be in at the time<end italics>. So when I went into that turn, my transmission may have already been in 4th gear (not 5th) and when I did the double left slap, it dropped me into 2nd, too low a gear for my chosen speed.
So I think it's a matter of preference. I think both designs are fine, as long as the driver understands the expected behavior of the design! In the 2005-on version, the driver just has to know that if the RPMs are such that he would normally select a lower gear (e.g. if driving a manual trans), he simply has to do one slap to the left and the desired gear change will be executed (regardless of what gear that actually was). The same with upshifting. The driver does not have to look what gear it actually is, as long as the sound and RPMs inform him what needs to be done, just like a manual.

In either version, momentarily holding the lever over to the right will put the vehicle back into 'D' at any time.

I am now used to the 2005-on version when I drive late-model MBs, but for my 2000 C43, I know I have to think pre-2005 behavior when using my Touchshift.

Regards, Mike

Benzini

2PHAST,
What you posted is not correct.
1/ There were only two pace cars, and both were 100% street legal. MBNA entrusted these two cars to the PPG CART-FedEx Championship Pace Car Team, that painted both, at a cost of $30000.00, in opposite paint schemes.
One was a "track" car with lights and roll cage, the other just played pretty in the pits with its window sticker.

2/ Once the Mercedes CART program was cancelled at the end of 1999, the two cars were never "sold to wreckers". One was dismantled because parts were needed for another car owned by MBNA. The other is mine today and is on loan to a museum in California. It is the one illustrated in the first post in this thread. From MBNA, it went to Brumos Porsche in Florida for their museum, and the (now deceased) owner gave me the car as a gift. It had 600 miles on the clock then, has 2500 today.
Here is a picture of it taken in 2012:



Here is what the other looked like:



I think that I got the better one... the one not thrashed on the track.

I have no plans to let it go anytime soon, nor the other I own, a 78K miles 1999 C43 that my wife uses and that is absolutely like new in every respect.

Sulaco

This is fascinating. You sir are blessed. It's almost as rare as the single factory painted green c43!

Benzini

You mean, this one: