My Review of the forgotten V12 Twin Turbo Mercedes CL600 that should be on everyone's list!!

hello and welcome back to the cassidy car cave today we're going to talk about the 2003 cl 600 and really all cl 600s and why i think this twin turbo 12-cylinder beast is one of the best cars mercedes ever made right after this okay we're here at the warehouse today let's talk about the mercedes cl600 um there's a few things about me that are a complete blasphemy as far as any car guy is concerned one of those things is i don't care about zero to 60 times i don't care about horsepower quotes i don't own a stopwatch i've never taken a car to a uh a dynamometer to get it tested for horsepower none of that i really don't care cars to me are about a combination of feel performance handling comfort reliability rareness slash cool factor uh just kind of the whole mix and so there's a lot of cars out there where you can take a look at a 0-60 time or a horsepower number and it looks amazing but really the car itself not that great and doesn't stand the test of time this car i think is going to stand the test of time and already has to a certain extent it's 17 years old it still looks relevant still a good looking car really well designed but the 12 cylinder twin turbo on engine in this car is just unbelievably fast torquey smooth quiet it makes the car comfortable to drive it's a true gt cruiser and these cl600s they just don't get the credit they should amongst the car people out there we're going to talk about sleeper cars a little bit later in the video but this is a sleeper car you know these cars were 130 000 when they were brand new and you can get one for less than 10 percent of that now there's a couple of reasons why we'll talk about that too but let's talk about the car maybe just go for a walk around i just love these cars there's not that many of them so they definitely take up the uh the cool factor on a car there's not many cl600s out there now there's a bunch of uh cl 55s amg's and uh you know the 12 12-cylinder four-door mercedes s600 but this car there's just not that many 2003 was the first year for the twin turbo 12-cylinder engine in this car and man did it make an improvement originally they came out with just the the v12 and it was smooth and fast but boy when these turbos spool up you're just not going to find very many cars faster from 20 to 120 than this car and i don't need a stopwatch to tell me that you can you can see that you can feel it when you're in the car we'll go for a ride i'm not going to go 120 but we'll go for a ride and let you see it and feel it the styling on this car is great still looks really nice everything's holding up really well fit and finish wise mercedes did a really nice job in this era putting these cars together so they would last now there's some issues i have basically with any of the mercedes cars from this era and that is the kind of uh cheapening of the amg sport package uh the amg brand and you can get this car with the amg sport package that's what this one is it says amg on it right it's an amg not really not to any true uh mercedes guy these cars the amg sport package you get the uh spoiler here you get the body skirts down below a couple of pieces of chrome and maybe most importantly the folks that amg badge but it's not an amg you know amg was the uh the hammer right that just the cool cars coming out of germany in the 90s that amg was taken and basically hot rodding um and so to get a true amg the engine has to be done right it can't just be a a regular engine suspension it has to has to be tuned uh well these weren't these were just amg sport packages so but enough about amg and how i think it's kind of cheap amg is incredible but the sport package the rest of this car is amazing these cars are super comfortable to drive now sometimes you might not think uh who cares i want what's what's the 0-60 and all that well you're going to care after you drive this car or any car after a while about you know how comfortable is it when you just have to go pick up the kids or run down and get a coffee or something like that these cars are super comfortable in fact this car is a car that i drive if i've got to go you know 100 200 miles away down the interstate this is the car to do that in it just is so smooth i've done a few little upgrades these wheels are different these are 20-inch uh wheels that i put on the car i think the ones that come with this car just make it look a little bit too sedate a little bit too mundane so you gotta dress it up a little bit and i did that tinted the windows maybe that puts a little too much flash on this car but i did it and i'll live with it but what is really nice about these cars is just the way they cruise down the road yeah you can go as fast as you want in it because you're never going to know how fast you're going anyways the car is so smooth and so quiet and so amazing in the way it handles just eating up pavement now you may also say well quiet i don't want quiet i want a big loud exhaust and you know if you want to sound like you're going fast yeah there's lots of cars out there that do that you can get a stainless steel exhaust kit for uh for anything and make it sound like it's going fast but if you want to feel like you're going fast 12 cylinders twin turbos my oh my let's take a look at the inside and see why i think this car really is doing a good job of standing the test of time a lot of automotive commentators out there i agree with the main focus these days in cars seems to be technology the more usb ports you have and more bluetooth ability you have the the faster and better the car is nonsense nobody cares about that or nobody should in a cruising sports car what's important is fit finish comfort you know that sort of thing so this car has no technology really you know it's got a navigation system that was outdated a year after it was put in i mean let's be honest the most modern navigation system now in a car is not as good as last year's cell phone nobody uses the navigation in the car screen looks cool but so this one's just as outdated as the as the ones built last year but the rest of the car oh my really beautiful um there are things you get in this car that you probably would have to really spend a lot of money to get anymore you know wood steering wheel you get those anywhere nowadays right but this is real wood real hand-stitched leather suede headlighters don't believe me you can write your name in this suede it's so nice it goes all the way to the back of the car you know ventilated perforated perforated seats that actually do cool and feel nice everything about this car was just really nicely done uh that's real wood you know if i held a match up to it it would catch on fire really really nice so 17 years later here's what 130 thousand dollars gets you a car that that looks you know every bit as good as it did the day it rolled off the line and that's really a testament to mercedes in this era they were capable of building unbelievable cars there's not a lot of them i really do like i like the sls obviously and i like this car and i like some of the e-class sedans and i'll always be a wagon freak but this car really checks a lot of boxes um what this car is remember back in the day i hate to date myself but back in the day there used to be sleeper cars and they were cars that were intentionally kind of uh taking uh taking the bling out of it so you could order a chevy two and have those steel wheels and it looked like something that was you know not going to be able to keep up with anything but light delight you know you could get it with a 396 or a some super engine four-speed muncie that would just blow the doors off anything else that had all the the bling well this car sort of is a tribute to that area era uh a sleeper car is a car that no one's gonna notice you know quite frankly when i drive this car down the road nobody looks at it nobody thinks anything about it and i'm fine with that i'm beyond the point where i'm looking for someone to give me the double thumbs up going down the interstate because they agree with whatever brand i'm driving what i like about this car is it just is very good at what it does without drawing a lot of attention to itself uh so you know volkswagen uh gti back in the day too that was a sleeper car all those cars that were super performance oriented without blasting into the world that that's what they are or were and so there's the cl600 you get a 12 cylinder beast of an engine same engine they put in the maybach from this era twin turbos that spool up more torque than probably should be street legal uh matter of fact this car is so fast even with these big wide wheels on it and the traction control engaged it has trouble keeping the the rear end from breaking loose even with all the the traction control and everything going there's so much torque at the rear wheels it it has trouble not lighting them up when you when you step on it so enough yammering let's go for a ride i'll try to explain as we're going down the road why this car is what it is but i want people to get excited about the cl600 this car hasn't gotten its dude by gosh and i'm here to defend it so here we are in the cl600 i'm going to fire it up and we'll go for a little ride we're in the warehouse so you'll hear a little bit of the exhaust note coming through the warehouse when i start it up it's got a good sound it's not super aggressive it's not a borla you know stainless intake or something like that or stainless exhaust but it it's got a nice sound but it's intentionally muffled uh to the point where it's not screaming hello look at me so one cool thing though any 12 cylinder really this isn't just a mercedes thing you could get a bmw 750 or or the mercedes or even the jaguars uh ferraris of course all the 12 cylinders sound different when they when they fire up it's almost a an industrial uh kind of sound to the starter where just then fires up you'll you'll hear it i love it in that cool it's just it's great all right like any good mercedes got a couple of obligatory uh gremlins from electrical so we got a marker light which is a little light up front a standing light and um needs washer fluid so yeah that's just that's just the fun of it there's a famous person on youtube right that says don't fix everything leave one thing broken uh to appease the car gods well that's what's appeasing the car guides in this one because we'll talk a little bit later but uh not the greatest maintenance history on these all right let's go for a little cruise to the warehouse i'm gonna turn the air conditioner on because it's nashville it's a thousand degrees and once we get outside we'll put the windows up we're not going to go for a huge long drive i just want to take it out exercise a little bit try to go through some of what this car does really well the first thing is it's going to go over these railroad tracks out here and now that there's a functioning abc suspension on this car it's just so smooth so big you know these seats just support you they're not massively uh bolstered to the point where you can't stand to be in it it adjusts a million different ways it's comfortable you can you can drive this car and be in it for three or four hours not even really realize it put the windows up all right so all right so here's our first uh experience of why i love the cl600 here's the railroad tracks now these beat me up in a lot of my cars but watching this car you know the camera's sitting basically on the seat it doesn't barely even move it's just so smooth and so soft yet if you go take a corner you'll be able to whip around that corner and the abc suspension stiffens up and pushes the right strut the right direction so that the car handles super well 30 miles an hour on that sign right there we're not going to exceed that because this is a nice little residential neighborhood here in nashville go up here though and get on an on-ramp and open it up a little bit but it's so quiet in here you know the stereo has i don't know probably 10 or 12 speakers it's one of the older bose design systems but it sounds so good it's just everything you know the subwoofer still works you can stand to be in this car it's not gonna kill you but it just provides so many smiles per dollar right like that's what it's all about for me is you can you can buy expensive cars you can you know that's that doesn't take any talent any knucklehead can go out and buy a brand new car and man there's some cool ones out there right like the hellcat or the c8 corvette they're great really cool cars but how many of you are you gonna see when you pull up to carson coffee that day there's probably five c8 corvettes already out at uh cars and coffee here in franklin and nashville um and so what you know what's the fun of that this car i don't know that i've ever seen another cl600 in nashville i occasionally will see the amg the cl-55 which is equally as cool but i don't think i've ever seen another cl600 in nashville just a rare car that so much fun all right let's get on old ellington parkway here we're going to open it up a little bit don't go too crazy right so let's just say we want to merge you know how fun is that the car just explodes and it just you know you you have to get your foot out of it because it it's not gonna it's not gonna run out of torque it's gonna keep shifting and banging through the gears and delivering torque you know for for days this car is so fast it actually opens up the sunroof a little bit when you really step on it the sunroof slides back so you know there's faster cars out there i'm not trying to pretend like this is going to take down a you know a lame lambo or a porsche gt or something but you know at the money this is gonna cost for someone to buy a car like this boy i'd be interested to hear in the comments if there's something out there that uh everybody thinks is is is better than these 12-cylinder twin turbo mercedes uh and you can get this engine in a lot of different variants uh you know the pretty sure the sedans and the convertibles both had the twin turbo as well i know obviously they had 12 cylinders but i'm pretty sure you could get the sl or the s-class in the twin turbo engine um so smooth so quiet and you know nobody's gonna know what it is really unless they're car people like us they're not gonna know what this car is when you pull up to them that's fine you know a lot you're not gonna really impress anybody it's not that kind of car but i think people that are really into cars would really appreciate the cl600 if they got some more some more pub there's just not many cars that are gonna do more than what this car does now is it a track car no you're not gonna take this car to the track right it's not that kind of car but it does have a back seat you could take your kids to park or you know down the road down the natchez trace and go hiking or uh go to deeper's fork or something and have an afternoon it's a great car for that probably not a car i'd drive every day nowadays you know we'll get back to the shop we're going to talk a little bit about maintenance and where this car has a weak weak point uh but you know you get into it if you enjoy turning wrenches a little bit these cars aren't hard to work on and there's so much information now on the internet for what to do and how to fix them and how to keep them going parts aren't expensive you can get parts for this car pretty darn reasonable if you don't go to mercedes and buy them all right [Music] yeah i had to let up there because it was just going way too fast too soon [Music] so much power i don't have the courage or the desire anymore to go up on the interstate and take this you know really into crazy range just suffice to say it's it's fast and this car's got 111 000 miles on it this is this is no spring chicken that's been babied and kept in a garage and you know trailered all its life this car has been driven it's it's got a couple of dings here and there it's but it's a beautiful car and it's held up really well the interior is in great shape just uh you know mechanically they have some weak spots but the the main essential parts of it the 12-cylinder engine you know you're never going to throw a piston or something it's always going to be a great car except for you know some of the stuff that breaks along the way but it's it's rare that you're going to rebuild the engine or something crazy like that it's just you know the parts that bolt onto the engine have their weak links and of course the abc suspension uh but it's a great car if i said that yet let's get around this corner [Music] all right so we're going to wrap this up uh the cl600 you know it's just that combination of so many different things that that adds together and i hate to use an old cliche but the sum of the parts is greater than the hole you know you you maybe look at this car and you think oh the styling kind of nothing aggressive about it there's no carbon fiber or big flares or spoilers or anything like that but it's such a classic design that this car is going to continue to stand the test of time and look really good as it goes forward um fit and finish you know some of the last mercedes to come out of that era that we're still just incredible in the quality of the materials put in and the way they put it together rarity this car is pretty rare uh they you know they're mass produced they weren't you know amg limited production models but you're not gonna see too many cl600s out there uh so you you know you get a little bit of that cool factory wow what what is that is that two-door s-class what and then they look a little closer and 12 cylinder wow cool and not many people realize that this is a twin turbo 12 cylinder you know they made a supercharged eight but uh strapping two tier boat chargers on us what five and a half liter 12 cylinder yeah you can force some air through an engine when you got 12 pistons going up and down and two turbos blowing air into it it'll turn some turn some gas into noise so to speak uh so yeah cool factor um reliability we're going to talk about you know depreciation brutal on these cars 130 000 you know i'm gonna show you the uh the car uh carmax offer on this car which granted is wholesale but it ain't anywhere near that uh but the great thing is you know it's probably done depreciating at this point you could buy a cl600 for you know i don't know six eight ten thousand dollars twelve if you really wanna get one with low miles and super clean and it's probably always gonna be worth that you know it might go up in value these were pretty rare production cars uh it's not like there's a million of them so you know 12 cylinder always has that kind of panache of what people want these cars could go up in value i don't know that i'd buy it thinking that it was a great investment but it definitely could go up so you know of all the all the factors kind of put together i think this one these cars really add a lot to the equation and they're just great cars that i think uh you know drivers and and kind of internet car people youtubers that are into cars and all of our favorite people that we watch on youtube you know this is a car that kind of gets that universal head knot of oh yeah the cl600 you know it's just in that range of yeah that's that's one of the cars that that we all think or should all think hopefully we all think or are you know in that rare breed where they may not be on everyone's first top five list of coolest car from the early 2000s but when you talk about it then people think oh yeah yeah that was that was a pretty pretty awesome car all right so i love the car let's get out and talk about why it's you know a fraction of what they used to cost so mercedes cl600 12-cylinder twin turbo gosh why aren't they 25 30 35 000 nowadays well the reason is maintenance these are so incredibly expensive to maintain not so much from a part standpoint but a time a service standpoint you know if you take this car anywhere nah forget the mercedes dealership you can't take it there but if you take this car anywhere you know a good tech is going to charge 125 you know 135 maybe 150 an hour to work on this car and there's nothing on this car that can be done in 20 minutes right so any bill is going to be three four hours of labor minimum and then the parts are you know their mercedes expensive they're not new mercedes expensive but they're expensive so you can figure any any time this car throws a light 1500 bucks is the minimum that it's going to cost to get this car fixed so they're extremely expensive to maintain but if you're into cars and you don't mind cruising the forums and uh kind of hacking into it a little bit and you got a couple of tools you can work on this car it's not that complicated matter of fact if you have uh some ability to read codes these cars are somewhat easier to work on because especially this one will kind of tell you what's wrong with it with all the specific codes that it throws but they are very expensive to keep on the road and there's no hiding that you know you'll get it i don't know of anything this car needs but it wouldn't surprise me if i had a you know 500 parts bill come up in the next thousand miles it's just just part of these cars so you go from 130 000 car to a 7 500 10 000 car but when you go to fix it you're not fixing a 7 500 car you know you're still fixing that 130 000 cars so they're crazy expensive to maintain that's why their the value has fallen so bad on them but good for me it makes it so i can afford this car i can't and wouldn't buy a 130 000 car but i would buy this i'd do it again i'm sure i will the day i sell this car i'll be looking for my next one and uh i hope that this will get some more love heading towards the cl600 i love these cars and i appreciate everyone listening and tuning in maybe hit that subscribe button that helps me i'm gonna make some more videos with the other cars i have and a couple that aren't here and i'll update the youtube page when i do that thanks so much

Channel: Cassidy Car Cave

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Id: 6yMtEwROaqA

Length: 27min 13sec (1633 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 28 2020