Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Roadster
Why 5.4: Same dry-sump 6.2 and transaxle balance as the gullwing coupe, without the party trick that makes the SLS famous — which pulls both the price and the reason-to-buy-it down a notch. Bought by people who wanted the drivetrain more than the doors.
Layout
Natural habitat
Ride comfort
Market value
Median asking price, good condition · €180k (2011) → €230k (2026), trending up · illustrative data
The long version
Take away the SLS's signature gullwing doors and what is left is a genuinely serious front-mid-engine, rear-transaxle sports car that most buyers cross-shopped against 911 Turbos and GT-Rs rather than other convertibles — the roadster sells on chassis and engine, not spectacle. That shifts the ownership pattern slightly further toward boulevard use than the coupe sees, since a chunk of the coupe's buyer pool specifically wanted the doors for arrival value, and those buyers mostly skipped the roadster. What remains is a smaller, more driving-focused ownership base, though still one that treats a six-figure droptop V8 as a fair-weather car rather than daily transportation. Values have followed the coupe's curve almost exactly, a mid-2010s trough followed by steady climbing as the whole SLS generation gets recognized as AMG's last fully in-house-engineered halo car.