6:13 am, December 2, 2010
OUR latest purchase in our bid to turn £0 into a Porsche 911 has arrived – and it’s an absolute corker.
Marshall Motor Group’s chief executive Daksh Gupta has done us, and in turn BEN, one huge favour by sourcing us this cracking Mercedes CLK.
We picked up the convertible 240 model from Mercedes Benz of Bolton on Monday where dealer principal Andy Banks handed us the keys.
Not only did it look like new after a superior valet inside and out, but it had also just benefited from £700 of service work!
Banks had decided to give the car a proper going over for us – including putting new discs and pads on it! And to top the hand over off, Banks had produced a special ‘MMG 4 BEN’ plate to mark the occasion.
The special trade deal saw us hand over just £6,000 for the Merc – plus £245 for 12 months tax. A huge bargain, it has to be said, and in no small part thanks to Gupta’s generosity.
‘We’ve had four calls on it this weekend,’ Banks told us when we picked it up. ‘One customer even turned up with cash for it yesterday! Thankfully we managed to find them other cars.’
Sorry about that Daksh!
After only a few miles behind the wheel it’s obvious this is one brilliant buy. It drives like new and is packed with kit. So far I’ve spotted a 6-disc changer, heated leather seats, climate control and there’s even a Tracker installed.
There are a couple of minor chips on the paintwork, but for a 58,000-miler on an 03-plate it’s nothing you wouldn’t expect.
After some research on Auto Trader it’s clear that we should be able to shift it for at least £9,000 – they start on the site around £9,000 and rise to £10,500.
We plan to put it up for £9,395 which should attract some interest and hopefully it’ll help us get it shifted quickly. We are, after all, aiming to get the 911 by 2011…
In case you haven’t been following our story we’re aiming for £12,000 to buy a 996-shape Porsche via the trade – once we’ve sold that we’ll be handing the entire proceeds over to BEN, the automotive industry charity.
