The Mercedes G-Wagen has, in recent years, exploded onto the domestic car scene in a way I didn’t see coming. Here we have a military vehicle lightly disguised as a luxury rig, and up until fairly recently, not even sold in the United States. Somehow – blame athletes, musicians, and insufferable Hollywood types – this anvil in a sport coat – became the plaything of suburban housewives. In doing so, the image has suffered a bit, much like when Hummer rolled out the awful H2. So, if you want the real deal, you should look at buying this diesel-powered 300GD cabriolet here on eBay. Incredibly, this was once owned by the Larz Anderson Auto Museum in Massachusetts and Wayne Carini’s F40 Motorsports before falling on hard times with the current owner.

The seller claims he bought the rare Mercedes off of F40 in 2010 and used it regularly up until the last three years. This is a pretty dramatic turn of events for a truck that was once a museum piece and deemed worthy of being part of the Carini collection. The floors have major rust holes and as you can see, there’s rust blossoming all over the body. While I give the seller credit for using it like a truck is meant to be used, it’s not terribly hard to be mindful of the bodywork and protect it during the off-season when not in use. He claims it was a summer-only driver, but this seems like a whole lot of corrosion for a rig only used in the fair weather months.

Not only that, the rest of the truck seems fairly rough as well. The peeling door panels, the grime on the dashboard, the missing or upended plastics around the console – was this a parts truck for a spell? It’s strange to see a seller who knows a truck is valuable and clearly bought it from people who tend not to trade in junk to see it end up in this condition. I’m not sure how it was used but it seems like it didn’t get used like a collector’s item that is rising in value. The seller resides in Pennsylvania, so it’s not like this thing was going to the beach every weekend (I can excuse some level of deterioration if you’re chucking surfboards in the back and going to the bonfire.)

The engine bay is perhaps the least worrisome area of the truck but that’s not saying much. If you check out the seller’s other listings, they are clearly cleaning house and moving some additional cars and parts at the same time. The two other Mercedes are in similar condition, which seems to point to a history of letting decent cars sit outside and rot. The upside? It’s exceedingly rare these days to find a G-Class model for anything resembling a fair price, so if you want to buy the cheapest example that doesn’t require importing from an overseas market.