Mercedes-Benz CL 65 AMG
Why 2.8: 1,000 Nm of biturbo V12 torque in a two-and-a-quarter-tonne coupe built for effortless autobahn miles, not corners. New for $183k, it now changes hands for a fraction of that — and the maintenance bills on a 20-year-old twin-turbo V12 explain why.
Layout
Natural habitat
Ride comfort
Sound
Twelve cylinders make a distant, creamy woofle and there is real turbo whoosh if you listen for it. But the M275 was tuned to be inaudible in a luxury coupe — two turbos, heavy silencing, 6,000 rpm — so what reaches the cabin is mostly wind. Presence rather than sound.
12-cylinder · turbocharged · 6,000 rpm redline · rated 5.0 / 10 for engine sound
Market value
Median asking price, good condition · €168k (2006) → €39k (2026), trending down · illustrative data
Child seats · ISOFIX
The C215's two rear bucket seats should carry the same rear-only ISOFIX anchors as the rest of the 2000s Mercedes range, though no CL-specific manual confirms it directly.
No ISOFIX on the front passenger seat, matching every other Mercedes of this era.
The C215 shares its underpinnings with the W220 S-Class, which pioneered Mercedes' ISOFIX and AKSE rollout — a reasonable basis for the rear-seat call, but not a direct confirmation.
Consistent Mercedes rear-only ISOFIX pattern (C-Class, E-Class, CLS, R-Class, G-Class manuals), extended by platform-sharing inference to the C215 (owner-community sourced, not manufacturer documentation)
The long version
The CL65 was Mercedes' answer to a customer who wanted S-Class comfort with a V12 that could bully anything at a green light, delivered as a two-door coupe nobody needed to justify beyond wanting one. It depreciated like every big biturbo Mercedes coupe does: hard and fast, from a six-figure sticker to daily-driver money within a decade, at which point the ownership pool shifts entirely to buyers who found a cheap V12 flagship and didn't budget for what breaks next. Few get kept long — a surprise turbo or air suspension bill usually ends the experiment — which is the same churn that defines the SL65 and SL55 on this index. It is a genuinely effortless way to cover distance, just not a car anyone is fighting to hold onto.