Re: mileage, they're probably good for it. But I prefer to put the miles on myself, that way I KNOW what kind of care the car has been under. But that's just me. My S55 has over 100k on it and still looks and feels new, but it had 38k or so on it when I bought it. So I know the later miles are highway, adult driven, no thrashing, fastidious maintenance, top of the line fluids, etc. But I'm not in the market for another 55k car. FWIW, I think the price of that car is about $5k-$8k high. I last saw one for sale in Sarasota about a year ago with fewer miles, collector maintained (same owner traded in that and a Bentley, downsized to an Alpina B7), to be had for around $22k. This one is better than that one though (IMO), simply because this one has the Chestnut wood, which is rare and gorgeous. Chestnut wood was my one non-negotiable when hunting my E55, which led me to my S55 (Flint Grey over Charcoal w/Chestnut, rear A/C, heated and cooled front and rear seats). I've not seen many with those options.
Re: W210's, I believe Al is correct that it was the last one where the car was assembled in Affalterbach (source: "AMG 45: The Story, The Cars"). Beginning with the Kompressor cars (August '02, MY '03), Affalterbach supplied engines to Sindelfingen and Bremen. "Mercedes Benz supplied the basic body along with its AMG-specific interior equipment to Affalterbach. It was there that they integrated the AMG engine, transmission, drive train and axles -- components developed in-house and manufactured in their own factories. Thus, the sporty, premium automobiles were largely assembled by hand."
Interesting tid-bit though, for all you lovers of the M119 who swear the M113 is a cheap, redheaded invention of bean counters... The W210 E55 with the M113 engine is faster from 0 to 100km than both the W210 E50 and E60 models with the M119 engine (5.7s, vs 6.2s and 5.9s respectively; source: "AMG 45: The Story, The Cars").
One last off topic tidbit for us lovers of the SL73, which never made the states: it was only faster by .2s than the SL600's, which I frankly find interesting given the displacement difference (same source). But this discussion was a good excuse for me to dust off that coffee table book.
I agree with Klink that the W210 is largely slept on by MB enthusiasts. I find that AMG in general is slept on by MB enthusiasts. I'll be the first to admit I'm not so much a MB enthusiast as I am an AMG enthusiast. So for me the W210 is another hand built performance E Class. I opted for the square diplomat mobile (500E) over the one with the bubble lights (hate those). Also not a fan of the garish interiors that AMG was fond of for the W210 E55 and C43 cars, though I might be persuaded to take a Brilliant Silver over Blue/Black combo.
Cheers,
maw
