Hey my old Mercedes popped up on Bring-a-trailer!

https://bringatrailer.com/listing/2004-mercedes-benz-sl600-41/

I was the 2nd owner from 2005 to June 2020, when I traded it in my 575.

Minor corrections I have to say given the comments:
- It uses SL65 front brakes with floating 390mm rotors
- Brembo rears are 380mm rears. Brake balance was optimized for the car (definitely was much better than stock). It was not for looks, I wanted the heavy beast to stop better/safer/more consistently
- The leather gauge covering (Black perforated leather with red stitching) was done by a custom leather shop in Philly...it looked pristine for over a decade, until the Midwest heat caused the leather to shrink along the seam.
- Front Wheels are 19x9 et30 fronts I had specially imported as I wanted to be able to run 265 fronts (vs 255 oem)
- From memory, rears are 10 in. I still have a matching pair of OZ 19x11in as well still in my garage some where.
- The swapped steering wheel from the CLK black was slightly narrower to improve the overall steering feel (That combined with a slightly custom alignment helped mitigate some of the Mercedes steering syrupy-ness). I had wanted it to drive closer to my multiple BMWs, and used my former tuned 8 series as a bench mark.
- the exhaust is actually a custom as well... I had the oem mufflers opened up and gutted, replaced by a single straight perforated pipe internally, then welded closed. It’s slightly lighter than stock and looks completely factory with a nice Growl that’s still rather sedate (between the smooth-running V12 and turbos there’s not a lot of sound despite the essentially straight pipes from the cat back).
- ABC/electrics/ everything worked as new as of 6/2020; The only thing I can recall was the CD changer stopped working. I never did get my CDs out
- I never tuned it as I never got the steering to be exactly how I wanted. I don’t like adding more power until I have the steering, tires, and brakes all set up just right....got close but never finished the steering upgrades.

Needed to set the record straight, and don’t feel like signing up for BAT.

 

Oh and for a nostalgia trip, here’s a photo of it from 2010 when I was trial fitting SLR wheels.

SLR rears were I believe 12.5 wide, so I was trying them out.

...but they were extremely heavy and just barely fit (like less than a pinky clearance on the inside). I ended up going with custom OZs instead as they were much much lighter.

Unfortunately I don’t think I have any pictures on my phone of the SLR wheels only installed. I did back to back drives with the same tires and it was a night and day difference between the OZ and the SLR wheels.

I still think the SLR wheels fit the style of the car much better.... They were just such a performance hog.

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More then I expected as well, especially between the buy-back history and Carfax.

PS, good to see you are still around! You of anyone can appreciate how BMWs drive so much better. I actually originally benchmarked the steering feel to my E38, but that was a hopeless goal.

 

Oh another vintage photo from 2010 when I ran the 11in OZ rears with 305 tires vs the 10s 295s I ran more recently.

I was trying to mitigate some of the understeer of the 265F/305R combo. The 295s helped a bit, but at the expense of traction.

The turbo 12 could easily spend the rears despite the extremely aggressive tires (Re11s before, Advan Ad08 more recently)

(special shout out to my last E24 hiding in the back...it was either my 3rd or 4th E24 depending how you count the parts car; I am still kicking myself for not buying the E24 M6 when I could have...)

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