Count yourself lucky with a W123 if you buy Merc 230CE

Ithink Mercedes C123 coupés are worth keeping an eye on. Rare, stylish and largely unappreciated, prices can range from £1500 to over £15,000, depending on mileage and condition. But unlike 107 SLS, these Eighties Bruno Sacco-designed coupés aren’t an obvious Benz that everybody knows how to value.

The very original and well cared-for Crystal Green ’83 230CE sold in October by Brightwells was a case in point. With 90,000 miles, four owners (the last for 25 years) and 16 stamps in the book, I thought it would make much more than £4257. Some light cosmetics and a small bit of paintwork wouldn’t have gone amiss – but polished, preened and scrubbed up, it should have made at least seven grand. Compare this to the well-presented 88,000-mile ’84 sold by Manor Park Classics in the same month with its neat folder full of history, 16-stamp service book and sparklingly clean interior and exterior for £12,362, and you can see the difference proper presentation makes. In August last year, Brightwells sold another ’85 230CE, in Champagne with 108,000 miles, for £4200, so cheap ones do occasionally pop up. At 2.7 million units built, the W123 may have been ubiquitous but only 29,858 examples of the 230CE rolled off the Sindelfingen production lines, far fewer than the bigger-engine 280CE, and a fraction of the 237,000 R107 SLS built. The 230CE is one of the rarest Eighties Mercedes, but find a reasonable-mileage, historied example at less than market money and you’ll have a tough-as-tungsten daily driver that will recondition easily, hold its value, and possibly even gently appreciate in the future.