The seller of today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe AMG avers in his ad that you will not be disappointed by the car. How could you be with so wild a wagon? Well, maybe the price, and maybe the fact that it’d be pretty hard to get it into the U.S..
Alfa Romeo Jeep. Just let that sink in for a moment. Yesterday’s 1953 Alfa Romeo 1900M gave you the ability to be stranded beside the road and stranded beside the off-road. That restored former army brat was much too nice to actually muddy up, and it was too expensive to abandon in the woods should it get stuck. In fact, its price was something few of you would be willing to be stuck paying, as it earned a 74% Crack Pipe loss. Let’s leave Italy now, and visit another country, one with a lot going for it.
Let me just lay this out there, and you Canadians correct me if I’m wrong: Canada has a lot on the US when it comes to quality of life metrics. They’ve got Timmy Horton’s coffee, a polite society, and decent health care. In the States we have Starbucks. Blue Cross, and people who shout a lot. In politics, Canada has Justin Trudeau running the place and he seems to be a nice guy who apologizes a lot and is tres hunky to boot. Here in the U.S. we have a choice of a dour lady with questionable understanding of what top secret means and an angry yam vying for our top spot.
Canada also has this 1999 Mercedes Benz C43 AMG Estate, a car that we in the U.S. were so cruelly denied. Oh sure, we received the C43 sedan and it was all kinds of fun if you didn’t have to go around many corners, but we never got the fetching wagon in any form at all.
Here it is in appropriate silver over black and rocking the old school five-spoke AMG dinner plate wheels. There’s 132,000 kilometers on the clock, kilometers being something they use in Canada in place of miles since they’re metrified. For those of us not schooled in the metric system, that’s about 82,000 miles. And for you sailors, it’s about 75,000 nautical miles.
What makes the C43 worth “C”-ing? Well, under the hood lies a rip-snorting 4.3-litre SOHC alloy 24-valve V8 that cranks out 302-bhp and the same number of torques. Backing that up is a stout five-speed automatic. A manual was never offered from the factory on these.
All that means zero to sixty times are six-second affairs and the car should sound like a rocket launch when you put the beans to it. AMG upgraded the brakes on these too, as well as stiffening up the springs and shocks, however contemporary reviews of the sedan version did not have good things to say about either the ride or handling. It’s questionable if the higher capacity wagon would be any better.
It sure looks better, however maybe that’s just the lack of familiarity. Still, I think a few of us have a soft spot for ‘90s Euro-wagons and this is a very tidy one. The bodywork looks to be in fine shape, with no apparent issues other than a busted star on the boot lid.
The interior as well seems like a nice place to visit, with high bolstered leather thrones in front and your typical Mercedes ergonomic precision strewn about. There does seem to be some add-on hoo-ha on the dash and it makes me wonder how difficult it would be to yank all that crap out. It should be noted that the date stamps on all the pics in the ad are from last year or earlier, but I’m sure it looks the same now, I mean would a Canadian lie?
The ad says that a major tuneup/service has been done but it doesn’t detail what went into that, of if the work is more recent than the pictures. It does note that you will not be disappointed which I must say is a pretty bold statement.
Many of us living outside of Canada may just have to live with disappointment however, seeing as being less than 25 years old this cool ride is not currently welcome in the U.S.. The cost to ship it elsewhere is probably not worth it either. That means that once again the Canadians win. Curse you, polite people of the North!
If any of them decide to take advantage of their good fortune in choice of country then they’ll need to come up with $14,900 in Canadian moolah. That works out to about $11,415 in U.S. money, or around 10,350€.
What do you think about that price for this rare hot rod wagon? Does $14,900 seem like a good deal for the car as presented? Or, it being Canada, does the seller need to start apologizing for asking so much?
You decide!
AutoTrader CA out of Burnaby, or go here if the ad disappears.
H/T to phaedrus for the hookup!
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