SOLD 1985 230E AMG 5-speed, Nautical Blue/Blue Fabric, 106kkm, BaT auction (Lyndhurst, NJ)

[gsxr]

No affiliation. This is from the Barry Taylor auctions (link) where it sold for ~$25k in summer 2024.

UPDATE: Sold for $40k w/ fees on BaT, see post #11 below.


VIN = WDB1240231A005661

Datacard: Not available in EPC (?!)

No Reserve: Euro 1985 Mercedes-Benz 230E AMG 5-Speed

Bid for the chance to own a No Reserve: Euro 1985 Mercedes-Benz 230E AMG 5-Speed at auction with Bring a Trailer, the home of the best vintage and classic cars online. Lot #180,069.

bringatrailer.com

Euro 1985 Mercedes-Benz 230E AMG 5-Speed​

​

This 1985 Mercedes-Benz 230E is a European-specification example that was imported to the US by AMG West in 1985 and subsequently federalized by Barry Taylor Enterprises of Richmond, California. The car is finished in Nautical Blue Metallic over blue cloth and has been modified with an AMG tune, cams, and bodywork as well as bolstered power-adjustable Recaro bucket seats, 16″ AMG five-spoke wheels, an AMG Italvolanti steering wheel, tubular headers, 300E-specification front calipers, and a modified sound system. The most recent private party owner had the car from 1995 to 2001, at which point they sold it back to Barry Taylor, who kept the car in their collection until the selling dealer’s acquisition in 2024. Subsequent recommissioning included overhauling the fuel system, reconditioning the wheels, and replacing the battery and tires. This Euro W124 is now offered by the seller on behalf of its owner, a retail dealer in New Jersey, with partial service records, literature and tools, and a clean California title.​

​

The car is finished in Nautical Blue Metallic (929) and has been modified with AMG bodywork including a front bumper cover, side skirts, and rear spoiler. The front grille features body-color trim and other exterior details comprise a sunroof, fog lights, and a monoblade windshield wiper. Stone chips are visible on the nose, roof, and mirror caps. Paint meter readings are provided in the gallery.​

​

The 16″ five-spoke AMG wheels were reconditioned in preparation for the sale and sport blue faces, bright lips, and AMG-branded center caps. Continental ExtremeContact DWS06 tires measuring 205/55 up front and 225/50 out back were installed by the selling dealer in December 2024 and have date codes from 2024. Records indicate that 300E-specification front calipers were installed in June 1997, and aftermarket cross-drilled rotors complement the anti-lock brake system (ABS).​

​

Power-adjustable bolstered Recaro front bucket seats trimmed in blue cloth have been installed in the cabin. Zebrano wood trim adorns the dash, center console, shift knob, and door panels, and other appointments include air conditioning, cruise control, crank windows, an aftermarket alarm system, and a Sony cassette stereo wired to an aftermarket amplifier and Pioneer speakers. The driver’s seat outer bolster is torn and the dashboard has a puncture, both of which are depicted in the photo gallery.​

​

The four-spoke AMG Italvolanti steering wheel wears an aftermarket leather wrap and frames an AMG-branded 260-km/h speedometer, a 7k-rpm tachometer, and auxiliary gauges. The six-digit odometer shows 106k kilometers (~66k miles).​

​

The 2.3-liter inline-four is reported to be modified with an AMG-specification tune and camshafts as well as tubular exhaust headers. Power is routed to the rear wheels via a five-speed manual transmission. Work performed in 2024 following long-term storage is said to have included removing and cleaning the fuel tank as well as replacing the battery and fuel pump, accumulator, and filter. The selling dealer notes an exhaust leak. Photos of AMG markings on a camshaft are provided in the gallery.​

​

The car was inspected by the Bureau of Automotive Repair (BAR), and an engine identification sticker can be seen on the driver’s door jamb. The vehicle’s exhaust system has since been modified, and it may not pass a California emissions inspection in its current configuration.​

​

Tools and other accessories are included in the sale along with service records spanning the late 1990s and early 2000s.​

​

No Carfax report can be generated for the car’s VIN, and the vehicle has not passed a California emissions inspection since 1999.​

 

[gsxr]

More pics.

 

[gsxr]

Final pics.

 

[gsxr]

@WDB748372 - anything show up for the order number on the metal tag?

Never seen a VIN not exist in the EPC at all...

 

[Stevester 500E]

Maybe all the good ones aren't gone....

 

[WDB748372]

@WDB748372 - anything show up for the order number on the metal tag?

Never seen a VIN not exist in the EPC at all...

I've come across VINs where it was not in EPC but I would still find it on a site like LastVin.com. Take a look at WDB1240361B521423 and WDB2100741A859659. These are not found in EPC (at least the 11/2018 version I have) but LastVin.com can decode it.

My best guess would be a different version of EPC might have it which is how I guess LastVin among others decode VINs like the ones mentioned above. So there could be a tiny chance that this car is in a very, very early version of EPC one that even online VIN decoders didn't bother? Just thinking out loud here.... Now that makes me wonder why any of these would get removed from the EPC databases. FWIW I've come across a W210 E55 VIN before where some of the info on the datacard was removed due to it being stolen but the car wasn't just wiped out of the database.

Anywho, I finished looking at 250,000+ 124.023 VINs:

• I couldn't find one with a production number of "5001874" Sometimes these production numbers aren't present in the database so I'm not surprised.
• If this VIN were to exist in EPC, it would be the 3rd 124.023 (assuming there aren't missing VINs prior to this). First WDB1240231A002492, second WDB1240231A004088 then would be this car which is WDB1240231A005661.
• Interestingly so I found one match that is like this car for sale. I searched all 124.023 chassis for paint code 929, interior code 072 along with all the SA codes stamped on the metal tag: 412, 466, 470, 504, 511, 531, 812. WDB1240231A070012.
• This is such a specific query and usually when I do something like this I'm mostly confident it's the car. Not sure what to make of that either.

 

[weide1]

@WDB748372

Lastvin.com doesn't recognize this VIN WDB1400762A346018 too.
Can you see if it still exists?
It's a Brunei CL73. I am curious about the first date of registration.

 

[WDB748372]

@WDB748372

Lastvin.com doesn't recognize this VIN WDB1400762A346018 too.
Can you see if it still exists?
It's a Brunei CL73. I am curious about the first date of registration.

I don't see WDB1400762A346018 in LastVin or in the EPC databases either.

The only VIN around it is 2A346869. The table goes:
2A345142 (10-25-1996)
2A346869 (10-31-1996)
2A352441 (12-18-1996)

Notice the large jump there. Quite possible there's more around that range. In terms of first registration date, hard to tell but should be around there.

Randomly pulled another VIN from Brunei's collection, WDB1400762A366657 (not found anywhere). Similar story.
2A361334
2A366644
2A368009

 

[weide1]

I don't see WDB1400762A346018 in LastVin or in the EPC databases either.

The only VIN around it is 2A346869. The table goes:
2A345142 (10-25-1996)
2A346869 (10-31-1996)
2A352441 (12-18-1996)

Thank you. Between 10-25-1996 and 10-31-1996 that is.

 

[Sebastopol]

The Blue Shoe, A super nice car with many AMG components that add to its overall appeal and exclusiveness. If this was an AMG modified engine, why have the letters scratched in an area not visible, under the camshaft cover, rather than “AMG - serial number” proudly stamped on the engine block?

 

[gsxr]

Sold for a bit under $38k, or about $40k with fees, plus T/T/T/T.

If I had attempted this flip, I'd have paid $40k from Bonham-Barry and then only gotten $25k from the no reserve auction.

Solid support for the mid-$30's with 4 bidders in that ballpark. Next two were looking for a bargain. Runner-up Smcase22 posted that he was trying to bid higher but his bids weren't coming through. Hmmm.

USD $37,820 bid placed by jungmins
USD $37,280 bid placed by Smcase22
USD $36,500 bid placed by Marianetti_Motors_Inc
USD $32,500 bid placed by VTACH
USD $20,000 bid placed by Roofsforcars
USD $13,000 bid placed by Clark.W.Griswold

 

[Harv]

So it looks like $21,505 from Bonhams to $37,820 on BaT. Even with the buyer's fee from Bonhams (15%!), I think the seller is happy here. Couldn't have spent more than $2k on the minor refurb.

 

[camionjeep]

I've followed this auction, as I follow a lot on BAT. I am worried that a lot of the language that the dealer uses to upsell the car is speculative, and then he says 'but we don't have documents', or proof. It's obviously an early car modified with some possibly AMG parts.

I was trying to find how the early cams are marked. I know late ones are stamped on the end. The photo shown is of 'hand lettered' marking on the non bearing surface of the last journal. Can anyone tell me if this is correct please as I can't find a reference to it, and how do we know these are the cams in the engine, not just a stock photo?

The Recaro electric sport seats were available for other German brands, I'm not sure of the provenance of the steering wheel, but it looks much later, and not what I would recognize as an AMG MOMO wheel from this era. Penta Stars are era correct, but I've never seen them on a 124, despite the cam the engine is almost definitely not AMG, no sign of a plate ever being affixed to the cam cover (even if it was somehow lost, there would be shadowing from the protected area of paint under the plate, and mounting holes. Yes there is a dealer sticker on the fan cowl.

The motor doesn't sound enhanced in the drive video, I have a 190 with a 2.3 that sounds MUCH rortier than this car does. And to look at the justification behind building this spec of car, it's weird. It's got hand wound windows, but top line electric seats. No sign of seat switches ever being on the door cards, 260kmh marked 'AMG' dials, even a massively over optimistic estimate wouldn't ever see this motor getting close to that, and in my experience all Benz speedo's (well, oldish ones), are pretty accurate indications of how fast the car will go. I'm assuming AMG is the same, having driven one with a 340kmh speedo, the look on the salesmans face was pretty funny when I tried verifying it, those CL65's are rocketships.

So what I'm seeing is probably a bottom spec 'taxi pack', as the listing says it's a pre public availability car, and that gels with the hand crank windows, everything else is bolt on, and why would you pay a huge premium to AMG to get them to up spec a bottom of the range model? I know I wouldn't, I'd buy a higher spec car, and pay for AMG power.

The car got upgraded to 300 brakes in the late nineties, and I think this is the nail in the coffin. I can't imagine AMG ever letting an enhanced car out of it's doors on bottom spec brakes. I've seen a number of dealers doing this on BAT recently, including one who upsold a Jaguar XJS with a body kit as a 'Lister'. When I approached BAT over that issue they weren't interested.

So I'm in my sixties, and been doing either the car hobby, or being a professional (repairer / modifier/ race builder) since my twenties, and while there is the obvious issue of enticing someone to pay more for a car than it's worth, through unprovable assertions (this car is apparently the pre, pre production car for the original Hammer, whuich it must be, because the pre production car is known and documented).

In some parts of the world this is refered to as fraud, but I think for enthusiasts there is a bigger issue than a dealer making a large percentage profit flip, and someone not getting what they thought they were paying for. These kind of sales, which seem to be on the rise, as there are more people looking for pre merger cars, and no increase in the number of real ones available, devalue and dilute the market for real cars.

I'd be interested to hear some comments on what people think about this car, and maybe from owners of pre merger cars who have something to say about their cars values being affected.

 

[gsxr]

Wild speculation:

I think this particular car was a test mule that AMG played with. It's one of the first 124's produced. AMG may have used it to develop the body/aero kits. Why pay top dollar for a loaded, top-spec 124 as a mule? Makes sense start with a cheap one. The VIN missing from the EPC database may be related to the AMG relationship, could be it never went to a dealer, but straight from MB to AMG skunkworks.

Similar concept with the M102, it was likely an early R&D / test mule. When the 124 came out the M102/M103 were the only gas engines available in the 124, and there was likely some market for tweaking them. In 1985 nobody was expecting a DOHC M104 to arrive a few years later, nor a V8 engine as factory fitment. So yeah, a pumped-up M102 seems odd today, but kinda makes sense in 1985. I can't imagine anyone besides AMG fabricating tubular headers for this engine.

Ditto for Pentas, 124-specific aftermarket wheels did not exist yet. Possibly similar for the stock brakes, perhaps AMG felt the M102 power gain was small enough that larger brakes weren't necessary? Dunno. The Hammer brakes were woefully inadeqate for the power to weight ratio too, so clearly 1980's AMG was more focused on go vs whoa. No idea on the seats or steering wheel, btw.

The Barry auction went largely unnoticed, so enterprising buyers scooped up some of those cars, some with the intent of flipping them on a platform with worldwide visibility. At the time I thought $25k (probably $30k all in with transport/etc) was all the money, but I was wrong.

Totally agree there was some creative marketing here, but I'm not sure it borders on fraud. Documentation really would have helped.

 

[duuder]

I've followed this auction, as I follow a lot on BAT. I am worried that a lot of the language that the dealer uses to upsell the car is speculative, and then he says 'but we don't have documents', or proof. It's obviously an early car modified with some possibly AMG parts.

I was trying to find how the early cams are marked. I know late ones are stamped on the end. The photo shown is of 'hand lettered' marking on the non bearing surface of the last journal. Can anyone tell me if this is correct please as I can't find a reference to it, and how do we know these are the cams in the engine, not just a stock photo?

The Recaro electric sport seats were available for other German brands, I'm not sure of the provenance of the steering wheel, but it looks much later, and not what I would recognize as an AMG MOMO wheel from this era. Penta Stars are era correct, but I've never seen them on a 124, despite the cam the engine is almost definitely not AMG, no sign of a plate ever being affixed to the cam cover (even if it was somehow lost, there would be shadowing from the protected area of paint under the plate, and mounting holes. Yes there is a dealer sticker on the fan cowl.

The motor doesn't sound enhanced in the drive video, I have a 190 with a 2.3 that sounds MUCH rortier than this car does. And to look at the justification behind building this spec of car, it's weird. It's got hand wound windows, but top line electric seats. No sign of seat switches ever being on the door cards, 260kmh marked 'AMG' dials, even a massively over optimistic estimate wouldn't ever see this motor getting close to that, and in my experience all Benz speedo's (well, oldish ones), are pretty accurate indications of how fast the car will go. I'm assuming AMG is the same, having driven one with a 340kmh speedo, the look on the salesmans face was pretty funny when I tried verifying it, those CL65's are rocketships.

So what I'm seeing is probably a bottom spec 'taxi pack', as the listing says it's a pre public availability car, and that gels with the hand crank windows, everything else is bolt on, and why would you pay a huge premium to AMG to get them to up spec a bottom of the range model? I know I wouldn't, I'd buy a higher spec car, and pay for AMG power.

The car got upgraded to 300 brakes in the late nineties, and I think this is the nail in the coffin. I can't imagine AMG ever letting an enhanced car out of it's doors on bottom spec brakes. I've seen a number of dealers doing this on BAT recently, including one who upsold a Jaguar XJS with a body kit as a 'Lister'. When I approached BAT over that issue they weren't interested.

So I'm in my sixties, and been doing either the car hobby, or being a professional (repairer / modifier/ race builder) since my twenties, and while there is the obvious issue of enticing someone to pay more for a car than it's worth, through unprovable assertions (this car is apparently the pre, pre production car for the original Hammer, whuich it must be, because the pre production car is known and documented).

In some parts of the world this is refered to as fraud, but I think for enthusiasts there is a bigger issue than a dealer making a large percentage profit flip, and someone not getting what they thought they were paying for. These kind of sales, which seem to be on the rise, as there are more people looking for pre merger cars, and no increase in the number of real ones available, devalue and dilute the market for real cars.

I'd be interested to hear some comments on what people think about this car, and maybe from owners of pre merger cars who have something to say about their cars values being affected.

bat doesnt really care, they just want sales and while i like a couple of the dealer on how they present cars - i dont fully trust them! i still snoop around on questionable bidders every now and again, and even emailed bat about it if its anything weird on their end - they dont care..

 

[gsxr]

bat doesnt really care, they just want sales and while i like a couple of the dealer on how they present cars - i dont fully trust them! i still snoop around on questionable bidders every now and again, and even emailed bat about it if its anything weird on their end - they dont care..

Yep. As long as they get their fee, they don't care about any malfeasance from either sellers or buyers. Like the Bespoke C126+M156 marketing stunt, for example.

 

[WDB748372]

I wouldn't consider this fraud but the flipper dealer focused a lot on the claims. I guess it's what people want to hear, the slightest bit of potential significance and not what was done to the car after sitting for many, many years. Really the only thing that has been done to the car that has sat for so long is "cleaning the fuel tank as well as replacing the battery and fuel pump, accumulator, and filter" well plus tires...

Has there been any piece of rubber replaced, any fluid that has even been changed? Some of the rubber fuel lines were crumbling or hard as a rock when I was and still am restoring my Barry Taylor auction car. It seems like there was barely any care for this one, simply made to look pretty and give it some story for a flip without much investment.

I'm sure the seller has more stuff done: front bumper has been repaired/repainted but no mention of this.
Why not focus on stuff that has actually been done rather than some speculation.

 

[Sebastopol]

AMG had started to modify the M102 engine by 1983 - "Wheels" published an article on the AMG 190 with that engine in June 1983 edition. No mention of headers but they did write that AMG modified the cylinder head/camshaft/intake manifold to achieve 120kW (160hp) out of a 2.3 litre engine. Peak rpm is 6,000rpm. The AMG MOMO steering wheel was used in many of the 80's period cars, and several articles written in that period feature it.

R&T Peter Egan wrote in a 1984 article about AMG that the 2.3 16 valve engine was coming the next year.

 

[fherdeg]

On a side note, I don't think I've ever seen a 124 with Penta wheels but I like the look. I'm curious if others like it too or if they somehow seem out of place?

 

[fherdeg]

I just found a helpful reply on this topic from gsxr from 2014 post:

IMO... these wheels are not period correct for the E500E and I personally wouldn't use them on my cars. They would be correct for 1980's vintage models, mostly the 126 chassis. However, if they will fit (which I'm not sure of)... all that matters is if YOU like how they look!​

Good to know!!