Bought a 20 year old Mercedes SLK in Ahmedabad & drove it to Mumbai

Since the car had not done a journey even remotely as long as this in a long long long time, we'd decided to take stops every 2-2:30 hours, irrespective of the distance covered.

BHPian ///RMan recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Sometime in mid 2022, Aakash8300 and I began the hunt to find him his next car.

The requirements & conditions, while not too many, were as follows:

A V8 with no constraints on body-style.

OR

A V6/i6, but only in a coupe or convertible guise.

OR

A 4-pot convertible.

Cars in immediate contention, fitting into the aforementioned categories were the Lexus LS400, the Lexus SC430, Mazda Miata, R170/R171 SLK, C207/A207 E350, A209 CLK350, E36/8 Z3 etc.
A few others which did not really fit the above categories, but were considered due to sentimental value, like the W210 for example, which Aakash8300's grandfather owned back in the day.

One of the first cars which Aakash8300 went into advanced stages of negotiation was a lovely bottle green Lexus LS400. He flew down to Jaipur with another friend to go see the car, negotiated the price and delivery terms. But like is the case with a lot of imports from the era, paperwork turned out to be somewhat dodgy and that proved to be a deal-breaker.

Amongst all the cars that came by, this is probably the one that Aakash8300 regrets letting go off, the most.

We looked at a bunch of other prospects, but none really materialized.

A few weeks passed by, we had spread the word around to the dealers around and rightly so, one of them reached out with a seemingly clean R171 SLK200 Kompressor. The pricing for this one, however, was a bit on the higher side than the budget on hand. Nevertheless, with hope of haggling down on the price et al, we took the SLK for a check-up and took a few test drives as well. Alas, the seller did not budge on the price as much as we'd hoped for and this SLK had to be passed up as well:

It seemed we had hit a roadblock, with no decent car coming up our way. Just then a friend from Pune put up his beautiful, immaculate BMW F13 650i for sale. We called him up and expressed our interest in the car.

Even before we could plan to drive down to Pune to see the car, it was snapped up, all in under 24 hours of being posted online:

We had looked at a couple of C207 E350s which were offered by a few dealers but the ratio of asking pricing vs condition/work required on the car did not really seem sensible. At the same time, a friend here in Bombay put up his C207 E350 on the block.

Aakash8300 to have a look at this one as well. The car, albeit a high run one, had been in long term ownership and most issues on the car were known. Like they say, a known devil is better than the unknown!
Since we already knew the owner well, he offered that Aakash8300 keep the car for a few days, experience the car properly, before he could close in on the deal.

The butter smooth V6 motor coupled with the sleek body of the C207 seemed like a match made in heaven - and it looked like we had finally found the car we were looking for:

The C207 stayed with us for quite a while, and we drove it to car meets, drives and even took some pictures with its grandad - the C124 300CE:

As luck would have it, Aakash8300 and the owner could not conclude on pricing and payment terms and thus, the beautiful C207 too was returned to our friend, who continued to use it as his daily.

We kept the hunt alive, widening our horizons a bit more, geographically atleast.

One day, I chanced upon a sale post of a black R170 SLK230 Kompressor on Facebook Marketplace and shared it with Aakash8300. He had simultaneously received the Team BHP Classifieds link to the same car from another friend. We contacted the seller, based in Ahmedabad, who immediately sent us pictures and other details.

Aakash8300 then discussed the specifics with him. Meanwhile, I got in touch with my mechanic, who had worked on my Toyota TownAce, soon after I had purchased it in Ahmedabad. In a rather lovely turn of events, he told us he had worked on the SLK in the recent past and shared many details pertaining the car and its history. With the car vetted by someone known, knowledgeable and trustworthy, it helped us gain some more confidence in the car.

A couple of weeks passed after the initial conversation with the seller, when we finally decided to head to Ahmedabad to check the car out in person.

We initially planned to drive down in Aakash8300's W204 C200 Kompressor but then realized we would end up driving back in two separate cars, should we end up buying the SLK. So, we decided to look at other options to head to Ahmedabad.

Akasa Air fares on the BOM-AMD route made it pointless to check any other means of transport - we got 2 tickets with a meal included - all for Rs. 3000! While the flight experience was very sub-par, the flight fare does not really leave any scope for complaints.

After months of hunting for the right car, on the 12th of March 2023, Aakash8300 and I took a 5:40 AM flight out to Ahmedabad to see the SLK230 Kompressor.

A very sleepy Ahmedabad welcomed us as we landed and exited the airport just around 7AM.

With the city yet to get up and running, we decided to head to the area where the car was located and started to look at hotels near the same locality. The optimism that the deal would go through was so high, that the only filter/parameter selected on our hotel booking app was " Parking Available ". We took a cab out of the airport and reached our hotel, which thankfully accommodated us way before check-in.

In a rather spooky coincidence, we were allotted room #202, and the R170 is built on a shortened W202 chassis:

Before we flew out to Ahmedabad, the seller had shared some photos of the car with us:

This particular SLK was a 2001 SLK230 Kompressor with the M111 motor, which is the same block as the W124 E220 that was sold in India, but with 100cc more and a supercharger plonked on top. This particular example was not in the best shape cosmetically, as the pictures show, but was a runner. The spec-sheet of the car is as below:

After checking into the hotel, we freshened up and grabbed some breakfast. Upon getting back to the room, we realized it was still too early for a Sunday morning in Ahmedabad. So, we took a quick nap and at about half past 11, left to meet the seller and see the SLK.

The car was kept ready for us to test drive, and we immediately drove out for one. Sunday morning is the best time to test drive a car in Gujarat, period! No cars on the road at all and that only helped us do a thorough drive of the car, in and out of lanes and by-lanes of Ahmedabad.

After driving the car around for around ~30 mins, we got back to the seller's residence and decided to give him an offer on the car.

After going back and forth over the next hour or so, we finally decided on a number and sealed the deal! The SLK was coming home.

The following hour was spent transferring funds, signing documents and exchanging other stuff pertaining to the car. We picked up the car and drove it straight to the workshop to give it a basic check-up, change a couple of blown light bulbs.

The ever enthusiastic Aakash8300 had carried a fresh set of IND style number plates from Bombay and a Fastag, both of which were promptly installed on the car!

At the workshop, with new plates shod onto it already:

While work got done on the car, Aakash8300, the mechanic and I grabbed some much-needed lunch after all the running around all morning!

Post lunch we returned to the workshop, picked up the car and drove back to the hotel.

In the hotel parking, reflections of a very happy day:

We decided it was only wise to rest out for the remainder of the day, for a 600km journey lay ahead. We did head out for an hour to grab dinner but called it an early night, since both the car and the people needed to be fresh and alert for the long drive the next morning!

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