The Original E55 AMG Is TOO CHEAP! Faster Than A 911 Or Corvette & More Reliable Than BMW & Audi!

back in 1999 motor trend released an article on the first mercedes-benz e55 amg they said it was a sports sedan that thought it was a corvette and the article went on to list other cars that the subtle luxury sedan was faster than back then a 16 year old alex didn't want to hear it i was an american car nut as evident in this picture of me standing next to my first car a 1988 trans am gta that i saved to buy by working at burger king i had never even touched a mercedes at this point in my life and amg was still pretty new to the mainstream so i just simply didn't want to believe that the almighty corvette my favorite car of all time could be beat by some rich guy's euro car fast forward a few years and i'm a mercedes-benz apprentice technician test driving e55s every week and my mind started to change i realized i could appreciate amg and still love raw american muscle these things can co-exist even in this crazy world that we live in now fast forward to today and my collection is split right down the middle well except for this electric car thingy and this twin turbo blue car that i've yet to reveal i own an e55 sedan an e55 wagon another e55 wagon that i've yet to reveal a c63 amg and then on the american side a turbo trans am a really quiet chevy caprice a cadillac escalade and a whipple supercharged truck that you guessed it i've yet to reveal except in my patreon people link down below but my true love affair with the 210 chassis e55 the first e55 ever made began after buying a 1999 e55 to flip i quickly realized i couldn't sell the car it was too good i drove it for three years before selling it and now i kind of regret it so in this video i'm going to show you why the 210 chassis e55 is one of the greatest amg cars ever built and why i think they'll go up in price very soon but first something i wish i started using a long time ago since i've been able to grow a beard since i was like eight and that would be harrys.com this is the hairy starter set which includes a beautifully weighted handle with a textured grip a five blade razor cartridge carries foaming shave gel with aloe you're gonna love this stuff and a travel cover this entire set is only three dollars if you go to harrys.com legit streetcars or click on my link down below so i've used a ton of razors and let me tell you these are quality and the razer blade refills are only a couple of dollars best part is harry's donates one percent of their sales to help out our veterans and they're donating a million dollars worth of shaving supplies to hospitals just like a baby oh yeah so quit overspending on razors at the store and start shaving with harry's today by going to harrys.com legit streetcars or just by clicking on my link in the video description box to claim your three dollar starter set big thanks to harry's for sponsoring this video now this is a 1999 e55 amg a car that none of you should be sleeping on all right here we go the original e55 amg the 210 chassis my favorite amg car of this era and the last to retain the classic square mercedes styling with the famous monoblock wheels so if you remember this is one of the first cars built after mercedes and amg officially got married and were officially in cahoots to build performance cars so they had the c36 and the c43 and this car as well so this is the very first year a very rare car because even though they ran this body style until 2002 for the e55 they updated the body kit and the interior just one year after releasing the car so this has a different front bumper it's kind of more subtle different body kits some interior bits that i'm going to show you in a moment and this particular car is very very special it's a one owner about 90 000 original miles and it's over here at mancuso collision and custom this is their warehouse this is where i make pretty much all my body shop videos they fix up a bunch of my cars they have an amazing collection as well um but they picked this car up from the original owner and unfortunately it had some rust issues which is kind of like the achilles heel of these 210 chassis e-classes so it wasn't too bad it was starting to bubble and because it was a one-owner somewhat low mileage they went down the rabbit hole of fixing everything and painting the entire car so this is probably one of the nicest examples in the country now so they're not completely done with the restoration they have to refurbish the wheels even though they look great a little bit of curb rash and a few other things clean up the interior but it's almost done and this one will be for sale uh no link just yet check back later like i said they just have to finish a few things up so if you remember back then this car competed with the e39 m5 uh and those have skyrocketed as well if you can find an unmolested clean example and it's actually easier to find a 210 e55 that hasn't been cut up and modified because people just never modified these cars and definitely when you compare that to how many modified the e39 m5 so there's plenty of these that are sitting around bone stock they may have a little bit of rust or if you find one in a southern dry climate and you find one with a good body you are in for a surprise on how nice these cars are they are super super basic and just ultra reliable so a few years ago i made a video on what i believe to be the most reliable amg car ever made and that still holds true i think it is the c55 amg the 2005 and 2006 but this came in a very close uh second place the only reason why this wasn't the most reliable amg car ever made is because of the rust the rust was a serious serious problem on these cars especially if you lived in an area like chicago where i live where they use salt so anyway let's pop the hood on this i'm going to show you guys the power plant i'm going to show you an engine that although it doesn't have any kind of forced induction at all produced more torque than the 2003 and 2004 cobra mustang supercharged cobra mustang and that would be this the m113 engine so this was an engine that mercedes was building uh for some of their 430 cars um and the 500 cars and amg tweaked this one so they did some modifications to the cylinder heads uh different camshaft profiles different intake manifold a more free-flowing exhaust and this produces 349 horsepower and a crazy 391 foot pounds of torque so i'm comparing it to the 0304 cobra because they are similar in size they're both v8s that one was a four six this is a five four um but that one needed a root style blower to produce 390 foot pounds of torque and this one didn't need any of that and these cars feel so good off the line it's a heavy car it needs that torque and it is so much fun to drive the power is just instantaneous it handles well there's no air suspension on these uh so i think these actually handle a little bit better than the 211 chassis e55 and there is just nothing on here to break they are rock solid so when you're comparing these to a similar era audi performance sedan or the m5 of the era something you have to consider is the reliability factor there are no timing chain guides and timing chain issues with these engines these m113 engines last basically forever when i was a master tech at the dealership we joked that these were just like the chevy small blocks of mercedes they just kept on going forever they were so basic there was nothing we never opened these engines up for anything they have a little leaking upper breather chamber on the valve cover that's about it basically no failures these things run and run forever and they're paired with an automatic transmission that although it doesn't really shift that fast especially to today's standards is one of the strongest transmissions ever put in a car so when comparing to the m5 i know it's a manual i know it handles a little bit better than this but the reliability factor has to come into play here this is a car that you can drive for hundreds and hundreds of thousands of miles and potentially never open the engine probably one of the quietest performance cars ever that's just how they were oh you can hear that clutch fan that's pretty much all you hear they really need an electric fan that's for sure i think the later the facelift ones got the electric fan correct me if i'm wrong um but you can really feel the power it's instantaneous there's no waiting for anything and although the transmission shifts kind of slow it's just you know kind of normal for this time frame um it's precise it's luxurious it's faster than probably most people that were driving stick shifts at the time so this is actually a really really quick car as we see in all of the magazine articles from back in the day that gave this thing pretty high praises now uh what kind of dethroned this car was the e39 m5 so it had more horsepower 400 horsepower it was a manual transmission um so i do believe those will probably always be worth more than the 210 chassis e55 but you have to factor in the reliability these were truly bulletproof german machines at the time you cannot say that about the other german performance sedans of the early 2000s and mid-2000s at all you guys all know this so the interior on this car is very unique my 99 e55 had a pretty cool interior as well where the inlays were kind of purple but this one has the white which i like much better as long as you find one uh that's not completely destroyed so although this is dirty this interior is going to clean up perfectly these seats hold up really really well mercedes has always had really good leather seats so they don't really show too much wear especially for being 21 years old at this point which is crazy um so the interior is super super comfortable i took mine on a couple couple thousand mile road trips back in the day i mean i daily drove it for three years and it was one of the most comfortable cars everything's in the right spot in the car your your arm is resting right here perfectly it's at a great level this right here this handle on the door panel is perfect and they handle really well so these might handle a little bit better than the aromatic version that came out in 2003 the 211 chassis e-class so this just has regular steel springs regular shocks all tuned by amg as well as the sway bars so it handles really well and there's really nothing in the suspension that's going to go wrong so again the reliability of the whole car is fantastic and it's just so basic if you look at all of the controls and dials the radio the climate control there is nothing much going on here this is an old-school car and that can be really appealing in an age where everything has just turned completely computer controlled touch screens everywhere this is just a nice driver with really not much to distract you and the ride the ride is nice so in 2000 they updated this car which is kind of weird because it came out in 99 so the 2000 2001 to 2002 had a different body kit they had a different front bumper i believe a different rear bumper uh the interior was improved i got to say i like the interior on the newer ones much better you got your steering wheel controls the cluster look nicer uh instead of this kind of old-school i wouldn't call it gated but this kind of older shifter you had the tiptronic set up on the newer ones which is nice this one to manually shift is kind of weird and quite honestly you would never do it it's just too slow of a transmission to really play with just let it shift automatically and you're good to go so there were some refreshes that came in 2000 which makes the 99 really really rare if you guys are looking at a 99 some people like the subtle styling make sure that it has the original front amg bumper because they're basically impossible to find if you find one someone's gonna probably ask a couple grand for it so if anyone throughout the many years that these have been around got into an accident sometimes they'd get paid out by insurance and just put like an e430 bumper on the front and call it a day that's exactly how mine was i bought it sight unseen at an auction of course i came i'm like that's not an amg bumper they were bad pictures but don't make that mistake the front amg bumper especially in the 99s is very very valuable i mean it's not even that the audi and the bmw's of this time were like decently reliable they were the worst they were like literally the worst of the worst of the worst and i know this one you know a little bit more bland you know subtle it's kind of a sleek definitely but you just can't say enough about the drivetrain that's gotta count for something okay so as far as value how i see this moving along here um these have to go up in value you can pick up kind of a clapped out one for about six or seven grand maybe 150 200 000 miles um rust kind of a beat up interior that's sort of what i did when i daily drove my 99 it was 5 000 many years ago and i just wanted the experience of driving it so that the drive train and the mechanics were perfect because these things last forever like i've been saying um but it was rusted it didn't have the right front bumper so i didn't feel bad driving it and i drove it all the time every single day even in the snow in the winter and everything love that car so you can get probably like a hundred thousand mile example that's cleaner maybe just a little bit of rust starting to pop up for like ten ish maybe eleven uh and then they go into the upper teens low twenties when you get into something you know more pristine but i still think there is room to grow i don't think they're gonna reach uh e39 m5 status you know with the stick shift on those um and just kind of the more cult following on those cars um but those have just got blown up in price it's insane some of these e39 m5s the low mileage even the middle of the road mileage like 50 000 i mean i've seen them for 30 40 some of the really low mileage ones are touching 50. so i i would say that this isn't going to reach that but it should be much much higher it's crazy that you can still buy one of these uh for about 10ish that's in decent condition now they have been going up in price i'm starting to see them actually more expensive than a similar mileage 211 chassis e55 which you get a lot more car with the 211 but you also can run into a lot more problems um and people are just wanting to collect these now they're very very rare only a couple thousand total brought to the state so overall i think these are going to be kind of the next amg cars if you can find them in good condition to go up this is an excellent car for a collector as well and i really want one it's one of the cars i regret selling the most out of probably the 40 or 50 cars that i bought look at this look at this what are the chances a silver e55 amg 210 get out of here landscaper that is crazy that thing looked real nice and there you have it the 210 chassis e55 amg my favorite amg car of the era and one that i think is going to increase in value very very soon so with that being said follow me at legit street cars on all the social media check out the legit street cars patreon community link down below where i reveal to you my latest car purchases way before they make it to youtube there are legit tips on there i'm answering questions it's a good time it starts at only two bucks a month and it supports the channel also link down below don't forget to get your three dollar starter set for the harry's razors and don't forget to hit that like button share the video subscribe if you're new i think that's everything have an awesome day i'll catch all of you in the next video [Music] you

Channel: LegitStreetCars

Views: 220,035

Keywords: E55 AMG, legitstreetcars e55, mercedes benz, amg, e55 amg sound, mercedes, THE BEST AMG CAR, BMW, AUDI, mercedes vs bmw, mercedes vs audi, mercedes vs bmw vs audi, w210 e55 amg, e39 m5, most reliable mercedes, car wizard mercedes, CHEAP AMG, CHEAPEST AMG CAR, AUCTION CAR, AUCTION AMG, classic mercedes benz, w211 e55 amg, hoovies garage mercedes, tavarish mercedes, ORIGINAL E55 AMG, best sounding amg engine, m113 engine, most reliable engine, looking inside an engine

Id: woIA7mf7qD8

Length: 16min 14sec (974 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 08 2020