Car Dealer Sues Over World’s Most Expensive Production Car
The Mercedes Benz CLK-GTR roadster holds the dubious honour of being the most expensive production car ever made. While no MSRP was ever affixed to these supercars, prices ranging from $1.5 to $2 million USD aren’t uncommon, as only five were reportedly built. So imagine an owner’s dismay after paying $1.7 million USD for the sole North American example only to have it fail to drive 10 blocks. That’s precisely the disappointment Los Angeles car dealer Mark Johnston feels after paying precisely that for what is apparently a useless automobile.
Now, to expect a multi-million dollar racing homologation to be a reliable daily driver isn’t realistic, but Mr. Johnston maintains that his CLK-GTR won’t even travel 10 blocks under it’s own power. As such, he’s filed a lawsuit requesting a full refund on the purchase from the car’s manufacturers and affiliates. He claims the breakdown-prone race car breaches Mercedes Benz’s contractual and warranty obligations to provide a car free of defects.
As the co-owner of Grand Prix Motors, Johnston had bought the car new in 2002 with hopes of selling it. The car sat on the lot for two more years until 2004, when a potential buyer took it for a test drive. On the test drive the oil light came on, and hasn’t gone off since. Johnston’s two mechanics, both of which are used to working on Ferraris and other exotics, could not find the problem. Soon the problems snowballed. The transmission failed. The onboard hydraulic jack system failed. The windows came unglued.
After all that, Mercedes dispatched a technician from Germany, who proceeded to dismantle the car at Grand Prix. However, before heading back to Germany he forgot to put the car back together, leaving Grand Prix with $1.7 million dollar’s worth of parts. After complaining, Johnston was told to send the car to a Mercedes-Benz facility in Florida, clear across the country, at a cost of $10,000. Of course, when you’re caught holding a $1.7 million bag, that’s a relative drop in the bucket. After the car got to Florida, Mercedes mechanics determined the car had suffered an oil-pressure related engine failure, and would need a new motor. After supplying that information, mind you, they didn’t follow up on it, even though the other CLK-GTR Roadsters were having issues with oil pressure. The contract to purchase the car Johnston signed in 2002 stipulates that Mercedes will stand behind the car; something they haven’t done, to say the least.