First, I’m not buying a foreign car even if it has some ties to Dodge. I’ve ridden in a Mercedes before and the seats are literally too hard. Not as comfortable as the SRT to me. Second, it does not look as exotic and literally wicked as the Charger. It is a real box. Finally, it will cost you 3x as much to change oil or for any service. We used to have a POS Range Rover County. You can figure on spending $500 on an English or German car pretty much anytime you pull it in to the service bay. Not for me!
The e55 amg essentially has massaging seats, it is amazing again for a 15 year old car.
Air suspension makes the car ride from harsh to semi harsh to float like a cloud.
You have to think the e55 is essentially a grandpa in car years, it was being sold in bush's 2nd term....
With that being said germans are so far ahead of everyone in tech, it looks more exotic than a charger but less "muscley," you have to know when they design cars in Germany they design them for the driver,
@Jimmy N. Would be a good example of a European enthusiast, he debadges his cars and thus they become sleepers to the untrained eye.
The challenger to an extent but moreso charger, trackhawk, trx, durango, etc etc are America's copy of what the M and Amg brands are, ridiculous Performance stuck in a non descript car that without badges, and different bumpers/hood look exactly the same as their 6 cylinder or lower trim counterparts.
I see nothing wrong with this trend, these cars were built to be a stealthy supercar beaters, hence I would say something like an e55 is an OG hellcat, to everyone else that see a Mercedes e class, to the trained eye it's a lethal weapon that was producing circa 500 hp and competing with lamborghinis and ferrari's back then..... look at the new e63 and m5, they smack demons on surface streets and launch as hard as some bikes that weigh a fraction of what they do, not to mention keep up with lamborghini's, ferrari's, etc etc
Maintenance is a no brainer, you hit the nail on the head, in fact I'll go so far to say these cars are an automatic $1000 if something goes wrong.
I'll disagree about the English part, bmw, mercedes, and porsche are infinitely more reliable than some of the garbage that range rover produces, maserati is also up there in issues.
RR looks nice until it spends 6 weeks in the shop cause something is wrong.
The bang for buck however is there, drop a short list of bolt ons and it will beat a non awd hellcat with ease.
The last e55 we sold earlier this year was pushing close to 700 to the wheels, and no doubt in my mind would have beaten my cat.
With that being said, I'm very close to closing up a deal to flip this e55 for $4k profit and also actively shopping charger wb hellcats.
The amount of time and effort to keep an out of warranty car of this nature is too much for me, easier to go grab something like a hellcat that makes 700+hp out of the box with a full 3 year warranty.