How I found myself driving an SL500.

[dequity]

There I am, blowing both 335/35/17s off the back on my highly modified SCCA prepped Corvette at the start of a race. Just flat out getting the job done. Raw timing pretty much 100% of the other 121 race cars that showed up to race that day. One big Sht eating grin on my face and having fun.

But I had to hurry home because it was my wife’s birthday. Now I love my wife very much although we don't exactly share the same tastes in automobiles. She owned a Honda Accord. And was just fine keeping said car. When visiting friends or places she preferred we took her car instead of my vette, my BIG HAIRY jeep or the bike. So I'm thinking, she has no love or appreciation for cars. How can I open her eyes?

So I get home. Tell her happy birthday and that I love her and I want to get her something very special this year. So I ask. If you could have any car in the world, what would it be? Now I'm thinking that she is going to say something like a Camry or some other practical stupid people mover. Or possibly nothing at all.

But to my surprise she immediately answers that she wants a Green Mercedes SL500 and pretty much nothing else. We looked at pictures..... Many many pictures. Spent days online looking at SLs from around the country. And then we found the one.

I liked it because it was owned by the original owner and he and his wife were both engineers. Meticulous engineers at that. They had every recorded of every oil change and side notes of when they added fluids.

So off to the airport and poof it's ours now. Now comes the interesting part. I knew that the McLaren’s and such were fast cars. But I honestly had no idea that this old SL500 had anything more than her Honda accord... I was wrong-VERY WRONG.

Driving home at about 3:30 am on a well lit straight I decided to 'test" the car a bit. I could not believe the raw torque and smoothness of power delivery. WOW. This thing jumped up past 135 faster than the first three corvettes I owned.

That was four years ago. And she still Loves this car. She won't consider selling it for a newer model. Loves taking the top down and enjoys nice road trips on back roads. It was a good call. I bet we own this car when it has 300,000 miles on it. And chances are good that she will ask me to have the motor rebuilt so she can keep it.

Thank you Mercedes for building such a fine automobile.

[kau]

Good story. Things we do to keep SWMBO happy

[Austin]

Nice. Funny how things work out. Do you have any pics?