You have to remember, the east coast market is considerably different than the west coast market. People who can pay cash for this car are not hurting

Maybe you are right, we will just have to sit back and let the facts unfold.

Very true, i must agree with you. I remember paying about 200k for my CLK when they first came out, and now you can buy a brand new one for only about 140k. SL might not be that much of a drop over time, but it'll definitely go down a bit at some point. Big part of the reason it's so expensive compared to the CLK is because it's an upgraded 65 engine which alone makes the car more than 200k, and because their are much fewer models. However, I already know that I'm not going to be able to hold off since I've been waiting for this car for a long time, which is why I'm willing to pay the hefty price to get it on release. For others, might be worth the wait though.

What day were you at the event? I was there for two days and I never saw them let anyone drive their own cars on the track. In fact, the track was being used all day for various rotations......

i don't recall the exact date, but I was there with the owner of my benz dealer, which is where I get all my mercs, and we went for a few laps in the morning with my clk. They didn't allow people to use their own cars, but because I had my own black series, it was ok by them to run it.

So, why would you pay over sticker for this car? It appears that you live in Beverly Hills. All you need to do is pick up the phone and you can get a car delivered to you at MSRP. I know two dealers in that area that would sell you the car at MSRP. Just wondering....

How about this. Let me know what you are going to pay for the car by PM and you cut me a check for 50% of what I can save you after you buy the car from one of my contacts that will deliver it to your door.

They told me that because that's what they believe is going to cost each unit throughout most dealerships. They could be wrong because they don't know what the pricing will be yet, there's just rumors everywhere that it is in the 300-320k range. They just think that it could cost more through the dealerships because they know that they are going to make money off of this car, so why not. And you can't just call up any dealer and order one because most of them are already on hold for customers. So i'm sticking to my dealership because I'm their most valued customer since that's where I get all my mercs, and so they are holding the only SL BS they are getting, for me.

$445k for SL65 BS?????? for $250k one can get into an SLR

You may want to consider limiting your belief in the information that has been given to you by your dealer.

The MSRP of the car will be $299,000. This does not include tax, gas guzzler, dealer delivery and I am sure a couple of other add ons. That price is the MSRP and includes probably 15K to 20K of dealer profit at a minimum plus the back end on the deal. Give MB a call and they will tell you the price. It has been flying around for the past two weeks or so as an official price.

You would be correct in thinking that not every dealer will get an allocation but you would be wrong if you think that some dealers will not be getting more than one. Many of the top dealers are getting up to 4 cars. If your dealer is small, they may not have gotten an allocation and may have traded with another dealer to get it. That could be why they are telling you it is going to cost more.

Of course they are going to tell you and any normal customer that the car can not be bought because they are all spoken for. They will also tell you that to buy the car you need to spend over MSRP. They did it with SLR's they did it with SL65's and some even did it with C63's. They do it because some people will walk in and pay anything for a car they want.

While it is true that many of the dealers have cars that are spoken for by customers like you, many dealers also have people that are soft on the car or are actually car brokers that are supposed to be taking their first cars. As it has been discussed on this site, I think many brokers and customers that are first in line are going to be passing on the cars to see what happens in the market.

Pick up the phone and call around and you will see what is going on. Call all of the biggest dealers in your area and I bet they will tell you that they can get you one of the first couple of cars they have at MSRP if they think you are a real buyer. Don't ask for a sales person ask for the dealer GM. They are the guys that sign off on the floorplan for a 300K car sitting on their showroom.

I am the top AMG buyer at my small dealership and they reward me by charging me MSRP or less for my cars. You are being taken advantage of by your dealer if they are charging you above MSRP, certainly in the current market.

While your loyalty to your dealer is admirable, I am sure you can find another dealer that will treat you better and would be more than willing to work with you with as many cars as you appear to buy. Or, use this as an opportunity to kick your dealer in the *** and tell them that you won't be taken advantage of any longer.

In all seriousness, I have only paid MSRP for one of my cars in the past two years. All the others have been well below MSRP.

Anything you pay over MSRP on this car or any Mercedes is like burning money.

Again, this is just my .02, take it for what it is worth......

Well said, I'm doing the exact same thing, wait and see how the market goes in 2009, then purchase the car when the time and price is right. I'm 100% sure there will be left overs which I can get at MSRP or lower.

You do have a point, and trust me, many people including the "cash buyers" have been hurt by the economy tanking on some level. Personally, like I and others mentioned is to wait.

There has been a huge slowdown on buying of luxury cars period, and we all know about that. Just because you can afford a car at MSRP does not mean you have to spend it, if you can get it for lower, why not?

i agree with you and appreciate your advice. It was a quote which they imagined would be the price a long time ago before the MSRP was officially released. But now that I am quite aware of what this car should be going for, I'll look at other dealerships if they still charge over, which I doubt they will at this point, but i'll need to make sure anyways. And i would also agree with the thought of waiting until the economy changes for a lower price, but seeing the situation that we are in, I think it's going to take a while and won't be anytime soon. That's why I would rather just get it right away, and also because I'm sure that if I told my dealer that I wanted to wait on the car, they would probably want to find someone else to buy the car. There are many people out there who are willing to pay over MSRP just to get their hands on this car. And yes, I also found out that some dealerships will be receiving several models, but very few around town.

Dealers that want a premium above MSRP are insane and need reality check, so are the people who are willing to pay that. Smart ones wait, dummies pay.

i wouldn't even consider waiting "a roll of the dice". its a COMPLETE forgone conclusion that there WILL be available inventory, and there WILL be massive discounts.

IMO, I would just wait, just because you CAN afford it at MSRP, doesn't mean you like to waste money. You didn't get that money by being stupid after all.

Exactly my post earlier. +1

Bingo. BTW- Don't repeat this again, I need those dummies to keep paying so I can get the car at a much better price with low miles. LOL.

At this rate for things, you might be able to get a brand new one with no miles at a very reasonable price.

JRCART,

I would check on the availablity of the mods that you want..

As you know, I have my car (VRP1000 SL65) at VRP in Costa Mesa Calif...

It was "supposed" to be an 8-12 week "mod" job..

It is now 15 months, and it's still not completely done..

So, if you think that you can get 1000hp in 3 months, you may want to double check with the folks who are planning the mods for you... as with mine, there has been delay after delay, and back order after back order, and blah blah blah... and I still don't have my car..

Something to think about..

I did send jrcart a warning before he underwent the CLK63 BS project. Everything turned out okay, however.

I'm always super cautious about any custom high performance job, regardless of tuner/shop. Too many things can go wrong (due to delays in custom-fab parts).

Just do a search on Sleestack's CLK55 project on this forum. It's some interesting reading.

Here's some new info:

MSRP - $299,000
D&D - $2,750 (may change to $2,950)
G.G. - $2,600

i'm hearing that the new blk series sl65 has cut production to 75 cars for the us, does that change anybodies minds?

That is not true. US production is still 175. Who is telling you this information?

I am going to be using Evosport, they WILL hit my dates, I will sit down with them and we will put together a timeline that everyone can live with. Evosport did my CLK mods in just under 4 months, keep in mind mine was the first so everything had to be fabbed.
,
VRP is missing lots of deadlines lately, not sure what there problem is??? They have been talking about that 63 super charger for nearly a year now.

SL65 black series will not hold it's value. It is an OVER PRICED SL.

For that money people would prob go for alot more of a wow car over the SL BS. anyways good luck.

I personally wouldn't. I would take this SL over any of my cars. It's just a true enthusiast's car which hopefully people will buy to appreciate what it is. I'm not paying 300k for people to look at my car, so I don't really need a "wow" car. I know I'm not the one to really talk since I have a few exotics myself, but I'm just saying that if I had to make the choice between them and the SL, i would easily take the SL. And besides performance, it's always nice to have a car that is limited and not many people have. That's just my opinion though.