Goodbye, Porsche; hello, Mercedes-Benz. Today I’ll mail the check for my next car: a spotless 1988 560SL in Astral Silver over Blue leather. It will take a week for it to arrive, but the week is promising to be pretty hectic, with three days on a racetrack and a variety of social obligations.

Click the jump for a few photos of the SL in question and, more importantly, some fabulous Mercedes ads of the past featuring turtlenecked men, graceful equestriennes, and forged-steel snobbery.

Just once, get the car you really want! The 450SL! How I remember them from my youth in Columbia, MD. What a brilliant and not completely tasteless way to show that you’d arrived in this world. They weren’t cheap: one of the most charming parts of Tom Wolfe’s Bonfire book is McCoy’s internal monologue regarding the costs of operating a 380SL in New York City. Of course, it’s the SL’s tail-happy nature that winds up costing him everything. (Oops. Spoiler alert before this sentence.)

And there she is. The right car, in the right color. She needs the sleeker Euro headlamps, so I’ve already arranged for that. Would like to do the bumpers as well but I plan to park her in Victorian Village a lot and it’s nice to have the hydraulic rams for all the touch-parkers down there. She’s been in Atlanta for all but a year of her life with a very short ownership history. I’ll leave the hardtop off for October and November before she goes south for the winter. Maybe I’ll drive it down to Florida. Who knows.

I’ll be keeping TTAC readers apprised of the costs and drama involved in running her. And if anybody wants to join me on this adventure, there’s another SL available, also sourced by my man Berg:

Same car with a little more wear, a different color of silver, and a Burgundy interior. Can’t go wrong with either.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I believe I have an on-track appointment with the grandchild of my SL. Sort of. The doors don’t open the same way. More on that later…