Mercedes-Benz C36 AMG (W202)
Why 6.7: The first Mercedes co-developed and sold through AMG's own dealer network, half a decade before 'AMG' became a trim level. Values sat near nothing for twenty years; the first-factory-AMG story is only now pulling clean cars up.
Layout
Natural habitat
Ride comfort
Market value
Median asking price, good condition · €46k (1995) → €20k (2026), trending down · illustrative data
The long version
The C36 exists because Mercedes wanted a BMW M3 answer without yet trusting AMG enough to build one entirely in-house, so the two companies split the work: Mercedes built the C-Class, AMG bored and stroked the inline-six and retuned the chassis. It never got a manual gearbox, which kept it off the enthusiast shopping list for two decades and let clean, low-mile cars trade for used-Camry money well into the 2010s. That undervaluation is correcting now as the ownership story shifts from cheap Benz to the car that started AMG's factory partnership, the same rediscovery arc every first-of-its-kind car eventually gets. It is still a comfortable, honest driver's sedan underneath the history lesson, which is why the survivors get used rather than parked.