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QA: Mercedes-Benz 300SL Repaint
By slmarket | June 26, 2009
Nicolas asks:
So If money was no option / what would be the most desirable color combo on a 1986 300sl. I have the palomino leather interior already. What should i paint the outside of the car. Blue, Red, Silver, White, Black.?
John Olson replies:
The best selling MB exterior colors in the mid-1980s were Light Ivory and Silver Blue Metallic. They took a dive among MB favorites later in the decade when they became TOO common on other brands. While red interiors compliment lighter exterior colors, softer neutral choices have faired better. Black was the best seller even for SLs during the early 1990s recession. Silver returned to the top in 2000.
Each year industry-wide surveys are released to the public ranking most popular car colors, and MB shares its “best selling” colors with their franchised retail stores when they commit to future inventory. These annual changes make any single answer to your question less than conclusive.
Adding to this, applying today’s favorites to a 1986 car “doesn’t look right” and hurts the car’s value, all else being equal.
As a car associated with quality, overall preservation influences me far more than color. In fact MB models are so instantly recognizable that they don’t “need” color to make a statement. I’ve personally liked MB in “industrial” colors that say “I am a machine and I don’t apologize for it.
Many of the SL Mercedes-Benz questions are answered in our SL Market Letter, published about 12 times per year. For a nominal subscription fee, you can have SL Mercedes price trends and exclusive SL articles written by author, John R. Olson – publisher of the SL Experience book. You can subscribe to the SL Market Letter here.
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