At $9,999, Is This 2000 Mercedes ML 55 AMG A Total Steal?

Today’s Nice Price or No Dice ML 55 AMG trades any pretense of fuel economy for heavy duty horsepower. Is it worth exchanging just shy of ten gees to experience that gas-guzzling goodness?

There was little chance of last Friday’s 1983 Volkswagen Rabbit convertible becoming anyone’s “honey bunny.” At least not at its $8,800 asking price. The ad claimed that price had been set for a quick sale, but the only thing it managed to expedite was a 75 percent No Dice loss.

Let’s consider two very disparate cars: Porsche’s 928 and the Mercedes-Benz M-Class. As different as they are, they both have a couple of things in common. The first is that each is the product of a well-respected German automaker. The other commonality the two share is that they were each intended as replacements for other existing models, but those replacements didn’t go down as planned.

In Porsche’s case, the 928 was intended to step into the shoes of the 911. For Mercedes, the already long-in-the-tooth Geländewagen was the M-Class’ target. While neither plan went the way the car makers intended, with both the 911 and G-Wagon still in production today, the whole thing worked out far more fortuitous for the M-Class than for the 928.

Seeing as it was intended to replace the G-Wagon, the M-Class was designed with some serious off-road capabilities, being built around a two-speed transfer case and three diffs with ABS-based electronic locking. Wanting to add some street cred to the line, Mercedes introduced an AMG-imbued edition of the M-Class with a growly V8 and special bodywork to make its purpose known even to the hard of hearing.

Perhaps the most famous of these ML 55 AMG sport utilities is the one that our good friend Tyler Hoover—purveyor of the self-proclaimed “Dumbest Automotive Channel on all of YouTube—once owned and had stolen while it was idling at a detailer’s shop. Tyler documented his search for the Benz on video, as well as its eventual recovery from where the thief had literally driven it into the woods.

This 2000 Mercedes-Benz ML 55 AMG isn’t stolen (I checked the VIN) and looks to be in pretty remarkable shape for being almost a quarter of a century old. Perhaps that can be chalked up to having a relatively low 91,846 miles and having been well cared for by its previous owner. It’s now offered for sale by a dealer, and while the dealer is light on the details in the ad, it does offers a free Carfax for the car. That report notes this to be a one-owner car and that it has a clean title and a single accident in its history. That happened in 2002, and there is no evidence of that indicated in the pictures provided today.

This being the big-grunt AMG, it’s powered by a 5.4-liter M113 V8 with a plastic cover touting its AMG origins and 342 horsepower bellowing out below that. Transmission duties are performed by a five-speed G-Tronic automatic.