
Mercedes-AMG CLS 53
Reference — shown, never scored
Why 4.2: Bought for the roofline, not the drivetrain — AMG-lite badging on a very good luxury liner. It gets driven plenty, which keeps it off the trophy floor; it just never gets driven for the sake of it.
Market value
Median asking price, good condition · $72k (2019) → $44k (2026), trending down · illustrative data
The long version
This is the four-door bought instead of an E-Class coupe by someone who wanted the silhouette without the two-door inconvenience, and the mild-hybrid inline-six underneath gets treated as an afterthought by owners who couldn't describe its output if asked. It gets used constantly, which is exactly why it never accrues the enthusiast floor that protects cars people actually care about — depreciation runs uninterrupted because nobody is bidding on the memory of a great drive. AMG's badge is doing marketing work here, not engineering work, and the resale curve knows it.