For sale: 2005 Mercedes Benz SL55 AMG - SOLD...!!!

It's that time of the year, ladies and gentlemen. Good weather is upon us. The sun is shining, the temperature has risen from the frigid depths of frosty numbers, the roads are warm and dry and it's time go motoring. So you're cruising down the freeway - or, perhaps, you're zooming through the twisties on some scenic mountain road. The constant rise and fall of the engine's rev is coupled only by the wind rushing past your ears, and that fwoom sound that you hear when you fly by stationary objects on the side of the road, like trees. Your hair is river-dancing on your head as you aim the steering wheel for the next apex in the road, clip it, and barrel toward the next one. Your foot never touches the brake; it only feathers the throttle in and out of a high RPM range as you carve up the countryside.

But none of that's happening if you're not in a beautiful convertible sports car, tucked into a plush leather cockpit, surrounded by precision performance and handling accoutrement. So consider a pre-owned AMG Mercedes to wile away the good weather, without pouring gobs of money into a new car that needs to be gently broken in anyway.

Liveried in a striking yellow with gray leather interior, the 2005 SL55 AMG is the only Mercedes currently on our showroom floor. And with good reason: not too many of these babies come up for sale. Mercedes' SL series is not new to the sports car scene, and its AMG ties are no joke either. A little history, if you will...

The SL designation comes from the German Sport Leicht, or Sport Light, and was first introduced with the 1954 Mercedes 300SL Gullwing. The SL class refers to numerous engine configurations spanning five generations. In 2005, the SL55 AMG came with an automatic transmission but has manual shift buttons, Sensotronic brakes with eight-piston front calipers, AMG's active body control suspension, and a supercharged, 5.5 liter, 24-valve V8 engine putting out 497 horsepower. No, I'm not kidding!

AMG, an engine production and development company, was founded in 1967 by former Mercedes engineers Hans-Werner Aufrecht and Erhard Melcher, in a town near Stuttgart, called Großaspach. That's how the company got its name: Aufrecht Melcher Großaspach. In 1998, Mercedes-Benz acquired majority interest in AMG, and now, AMG is the high performance division for MB.

The history of the convertible is best left for another blog. But when you combine open air motoring with Mercedes' SL class, and throw in some AMG performance, you've got a classy, comfortable car that's going to yield more fun than you can imagine. The one sitting on our showroom floor only has 11,000 miles, a power hardtop, power everything else, carbon fiber interior and exterior trim, a CD player with navigation, Bluetooth, front and rear parking sensors and silver calipers. Come in and take it for a test drive.