For $25K You Can Buy This Mercedes Benz 280 GE

1985 Mercedes Benz 280 GE

Today’s Nice Price or Crack Pipe G-wagen is said to have been imported and Federalized by none other than Tina Turner for her own personal use. Now it could be yours, if only you find out what’s money got to do with it?

It’s not Halloween yet, but last Friday’s Audi V8-powered AWD 1990 VW Golf sure piss-shivered a lot of folks. It was alarming enough in fact to send that project car packing with a narrow but decisive 52% Crack Pipe loss.

That Vee-Dub may have looked like something cobbled up for a Mad Max movie, but how about a really nice ride that was once owned by someone who was actually IN a Mad Max movie?

Anna Mae Bullock is professionally known as Tina Turner – once half of Ike and Tina Turner, and later sans Ike (and well rid of him) as a solo artist. The heyday of her solo career was in the 1980s and early ‘90s, and it was during this time that she imported this 1985 Mercedes Benz 280 GE at a reputed cost of $125,000.

For $25,000, This 1985 Mercedes Benz 280 GE Has A Celebrated Past

That was probably chump change for Tina, whose Private Dancer album had gone multi-platinum the year before and had garnered the singer a Song of the Year Grammy for “What’s Love Got to do With it.”

Tina hung on to the Benz until offering it at auction in 1989 where it went to a Springfield Illinois car dealer for a mere $25,000 bid. Keep that in mind as that’s a number that will reoccur a little later in our story.

The current owner is now offering the short wheelbase G due, as he says, to space issues. Good thing it wasn’t the LWD, I guess. The truck has just shy of 100K on the clock but the ad notes that only 1,000 of those miles have been added in the past four years, and most of those in parades.

This isn’t one of the luxury Gs like those officially imported by Benz today. Instead it’s way more utilitarian, offering vinyl seats, rubber matted floors and a plasticky dash and center console.

1985 Mercedes Benz 280 GE

The engine is a 156-horsepower 2.8-litre DOHC six and despite Tina’s famous dancing legs, the transmission here is an automatic. Two-range 4-wheel drive is of course offered, and both the engine compartment and the underside looks like they’ve seen some use.

Bodywork is as black as Ike Turner’s soul, and comes with a brush guard up front and a set of Hella-good lights on the bumper. Rust doesn’t seem to be an issue, as it typically is on these things, and the ad notes the inclusion of new tires in the deal. The track is said to run reliably.

Black 1985 Mercedes Benz 280 GE

The ad also dares you – double dog dares you, in fact – to find another in as good or better condition, with the same money invested, and with similar history. Yeah, don’t bother, as that’s way too specific a description.

Of course, now it’s your duty to decide if that description – and the whole Tina Turer truck – is worth the seller’s $25,000 (see, there it is again) asking price.

Legit 1985 Mercedes Benz 280 GE

What do you think, does this G-wagen’s celebrity connection – it does say Tina Turner on the import tag – add to its value? Or, is this one G that’s just not that money?

St. Louis Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.

(via Jalopnik)



(via DORAL 360)

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