The Choice of Color

A 1993 Sportline 300CE-24. Note the lower stance and wider wheels.  

Think of the car you want. There's a make and model in your head with a color for the interior as well as the exterior. For me, that color is invariably silver. Silver-Grey Metallic. Ferrari has its red and Mercedes, Porsche and Audi have their silver. (Among the Germans, BMW's racing team is the outlier, preferring to race in white.)

Carraciola astride his silver W25 as Alfred Neubauer
(aka The Fat Man) looks on.

The cognoscenti know Mercedes has a long heritage of silver race cars, but it wasn't always silver. Legend has it Mercedes raced in white right up until the spring of 1934 when the formidable 350 hp W25 tipped the scales at the Nürburgring at 751 kg, thus exceeding the maximum weight in its class of 750 kg. The idea was then proposed to strip the white race car of its paint. Turns out this was the right idea as the glimmering bare aluminum W25 went on to win the race at the capable hands of Manfred von Brautisch. The Silver Arrows were born, and the rest is history.

Naturally, the issue of color is highly subjective, but I would argue that the choices for the A124 Cabriolet are limited. The cladding is one issue; the other is the issue of styling.

Note the cladding on the lower half of the Cadillac Allante.
This is not what a Cabriolet should emulate.

I understand that back in the day the vehicles could be ordered in either body color or a contrasting color. To my eye, the cladding looks better in the latter. When the color matches the body, it tends to make the entire car look too much like a Cadillac Allante. Too mid-90s plastic.

I ended up with a black Cabriolet because the car was a good specimen that was well-priced in what I considered to be a reasonable color. Not my first choice for color, but an acceptable choice.

One of the cardinal rules for looking for a used car is not to let color rule your choice. Come up with a list of acceptable colors, then be open to any of them. Limit your choices and, chances are, you'll settle for the wrong car in the right color.

With that said, I've been enjoying my black with tan E320 Cabriolet. It's more difficult to clean, it shows every imperfection, and it can get hot on sunny days, but, in my opinion, it's a strong, masculine, timeless color that suits the lines. Black is also a terrific color for contrasting the machine finish of the factory 8-slot alloy wheels. I also appreciate the tan interior, particularly on sunny days when a black interior might soak up too much sun.