SL/R230: Just sat in the new SL!!
03-02-2002, 05:39 PM
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2001 C240
Just sat in the new SL!!
Hi,
I went down to my local dealer (Ray Catena in Edison, NJ) for Service A on my C240. I'm walking around to the front of the dealership and the first thing I see is the Launch Edition SL500. Now...I was hoping that they'd have one on the floor for me to look at. Well they had two. The one on the main floor was locked so I couldn't acutally sit in it but it looked INCREDIBLE. A few quick details on the car:
1. Total price was a little over 97 grand.
2. Designo silver package was $9,500
3. The Designo package was the only option so you're looking at a Base plus destination, etc of around $88 grand
4. The Car was Designo Silver with Charcoal interior. It had the 18" wheels (looked awesome on the car)
Now to the best part of the stoy. For all of you unfamiliar with Ray Catena, it is a two story MB complex with the second floor taken up by delivery cars and the personal collection of Ray Catena. Well...I had been staring at the floor model for about 20 minutes when my dealer comes up to me and tells me that they have another car upstairs that will be delivered on Monday. Apparently some Russian dude paid around $40 grand over MSRP to be the first guy on the list. The dealer tells me to follow him. We go upstairs (which is blocked off to the public) and there it was; the Russian guy's SL. Well...guess who sat in his car before he did? And guess who turned his car on (they were going to move the car downstairs anyway; the Russain guy was coming in the take a littel pre-delivery drive). It sounds amazing. Can't even describe it. There is just a deep rumble that make shivers go up and down your spine. And this car looks better in real life than it does in pictures. Forget all the pictures you've seen...this thing is simply amazing in real life. So anyway, I get out of the SL and turn to go downstairs. My dealer tells me he wants to show me something else first. We go a corner of the room and there are 3 300SLs with their Gullwing doors proudly open. These are all part of Ray Catena's personal collection. There was a brilliant silver, a tectite gray (probably wasn't called Tectite gray back then, but that is the color) and a red. There will be an upcoming SL commercial that will use the tectite gray one to introduce the new SL. I promise to back and try and take pictures. Sorry for the long post, but I thought you guys would enjoy.
I went down to my local dealer (Ray Catena in Edison, NJ) for Service A on my C240. I'm walking around to the front of the dealership and the first thing I see is the Launch Edition SL500. Now...I was hoping that they'd have one on the floor for me to look at. Well they had two. The one on the main floor was locked so I couldn't acutally sit in it but it looked INCREDIBLE. A few quick details on the car:
1. Total price was a little over 97 grand.
2. Designo silver package was $9,500
3. The Designo package was the only option so you're looking at a Base plus destination, etc of around $88 grand
4. The Car was Designo Silver with Charcoal interior. It had the 18" wheels (looked awesome on the car)
Now to the best part of the stoy. For all of you unfamiliar with Ray Catena, it is a two story MB complex with the second floor taken up by delivery cars and the personal collection of Ray Catena. Well...I had been staring at the floor model for about 20 minutes when my dealer comes up to me and tells me that they have another car upstairs that will be delivered on Monday. Apparently some Russian dude paid around $40 grand over MSRP to be the first guy on the list. The dealer tells me to follow him. We go upstairs (which is blocked off to the public) and there it was; the Russian guy's SL. Well...guess who sat in his car before he did? And guess who turned his car on (they were going to move the car downstairs anyway; the Russain guy was coming in the take a littel pre-delivery drive). It sounds amazing. Can't even describe it. There is just a deep rumble that make shivers go up and down your spine. And this car looks better in real life than it does in pictures. Forget all the pictures you've seen...this thing is simply amazing in real life. So anyway, I get out of the SL and turn to go downstairs. My dealer tells me he wants to show me something else first. We go a corner of the room and there are 3 300SLs with their Gullwing doors proudly open. These are all part of Ray Catena's personal collection. There was a brilliant silver, a tectite gray (probably wasn't called Tectite gray back then, but that is the color) and a red. There will be an upcoming SL commercial that will use the tectite gray one to introduce the new SL. I promise to back and try and take pictures. Sorry for the long post, but I thought you guys would enjoy.
03-02-2002, 06:18 PM
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sl500 1998/ferrari 355gts 1997
<sigh>
just got back from the dealer. They had 2 SL500's--a LE and a base white with no options (already sold). They were asking $135K for the LE (base price $86K + $9500 Launch Edition option).
As nice as the pictures have been, the car is nicer in real life. It's stunning inside--even the weird batmobile gauges didn't seem so bad. The rest of the interior was simply stunning, stunning, stunning. The outside was gorgeous too.
Much bigger inside than the current SL--seems a good 25% bigger inside, mostly because the giant "shelf" in the back of the "current" SL has shrunk to about half the size.
I was blown away by how beautiful the car was. If money were no issue, I would've bought the car on the spot. As it is, I'll have to wait until July for mine, and for next September for the SL55.
One thing I think I'll miss is the "uni-wiper". The new SL has TWO wipers!
As nice as the pictures have been, the car is nicer in real life. It's stunning inside--even the weird batmobile gauges didn't seem so bad. The rest of the interior was simply stunning, stunning, stunning. The outside was gorgeous too.
Much bigger inside than the current SL--seems a good 25% bigger inside, mostly because the giant "shelf" in the back of the "current" SL has shrunk to about half the size.
I was blown away by how beautiful the car was. If money were no issue, I would've bought the car on the spot. As it is, I'll have to wait until July for mine, and for next September for the SL55.
One thing I think I'll miss is the "uni-wiper". The new SL has TWO wipers!
03-02-2002, 11:58 PM
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sl and M-class E320 4Matic SLK350
Detrioit Auto Show
Can share your sentiments. At the Detroit Auto show several of us got a chance to sit in the new SL before the crowds started to form requiring it be locked to keep up the flow. The unusual instrument cluster "batmobile arrangement" fits well once in the car and only looks odd in the photos. We were told that the color was the new Diamond Silver. Since it had more of a blue tint than the green tint mentioned with regard to the designo silver on the LE, assume these are two different colors? In any event, at least under the lights of the auto show the Dimond Silver was a real knockout.
03-03-2002, 06:02 PM
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2008 Mercedes-Benz SL65 AMG, 2001 Acura 3.2 CL
Diamond silver?
Is diamond silver different from brilliant silver? when I looked at the car at the autoshow, I was under the impression that it was brilliant silver. Lucky that you got to sit in it. I only had a chance to touch a little bit of the interior when they were showing a guy how they opened the top. :p
