Mercedes-Benz CL Buyer's Guide
Four tracked CL sales, £3,850 to £9,200, median £5,425, with seven more live as we write. This is the most extreme depreciation story in our records: Mercedes' flagship coupé, a £100,000 car when new, now trading at less than a tenth of that. Seven live lots against four sales tells its own story too; supply comfortably exceeds the number of buyers willing to take on what ownership actually involves.
What to pay
£3,850, our floor, buys cars with needs, and on a CL the needs are rarely cheap ones. Around £5,425, our median, is where most of the market sits: presentable cars with partial history and at least one expensive question unanswered. £7,000 to £9,200, towards our ceiling, buys the properly documented examples where the big-ticket work is evidenced in the file, and that evidence is worth every pound of the premium.
What goes wrong
Active Body Control suspension and the electronics are the wallet items, and they define CL ownership. ABC pumps, accumulators and struts fail with age regardless of mileage, and a full corner-by-corner refresh can exceed the value of a median car. The electronic systems, of which the CL carried more than almost anything of its era, fail individually and add up collectively. The V8s and V12s themselves are strong; it is everything commanding them that costs. Budget the purchase price again for the first two years and be pleasantly surprised if it isn't needed.
Our view
This is the honest warning car of the depreciation tier: magnificent to drive, ruinous to neglect, and cheap for a reason that arrives by recovery truck. Buy only on documentation, specifically ABC invoices, and only with a maintenance fund in place. Bought that way, £9,200 puts a genuine flagship on the drive; bought any other way, the CL is the most expensive cheap car in this guide series.
