ANALYSIS: To R107 or To R129?

R107 vs R129 | Source: Collecting Cars

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Should you buy a Mercedes R107 or R129? We’re here to offer some thoughts

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This is a blog post, not War and Peace, so we'll keep this concise.

In our opinion, if you’re a looks person, it’s all 107. The 129 doesn’t even come close to competing with that classic Merc shape.

If you’re more interested in what’s going on from inside then the 107, naturally, isn’t the driving experience of its older sibling. It's also slower, thirstier and not as comfortable as a R129.

However, if you’re willing to work on it yourself it’s certainly possible.

That’s not quite as easy to do on a 129. Case in point: Mercedes reportedly spent £8.15million to develop the electro-hydraulic folding soft-top roof (that’s £20,000,000) - good luck trying to fix that on your own. 

Despite its bland looks, the R129 SL was head and shoulders above its competition (and the R107) in many ways in 1989, but so was its price. A 500SL retailed for over £150,000 in today’s money and it was almost a third more expensive than its closest rival a Jag XJS V12 at the time.

When it comes to rarity, they’re at similar numbers produced. 237,287 for the R107 and 204,940 for the R129.

If you’re more focused on price appreciation, here’s what you need to know.

R107s, given their production across 1971 - 1989, are in that sweet spot for price appreciation, with the later cars having the biggest future upside. Looking globally across all R107 prices, they’ve risen 194% in 10 years, that’s 11% growth year-on-year.

The later R129, produced from 1990 - 2002 is still a way off reaching the sweet spot for price appreciation. It’s a matter of time though. Despite that, prices are up 61% in the past 10 years, that’s a respectable 5% year-on-year. 

The most important thing is this: buy the car because you love it, not because it's going to make a good investment. You'll just love it even more if it turns out to be good for your pocket.