Cessna 210 Centurion

The 210 Centurion, in brief

Cessna built 9,240 examples of the 210 Centurion between 1957 and 1986, making it one of the longest continuous production runs of any high-performance single-engine piston. Where the fixed-gear 182 Skylane and 206/207 Stationair trade drag for simplicity, the 210 pulls its landing gear into the belly and wing roots to chase real cross-country speed — 190+ knots in the later turbocharged variants, a genuine step up from the roughly 140-knot cruise of a fixed-gear Skylane. It is, in effect, the performance flagship of the same family tree: Cessna developed the 210 from the 182 airframe, then later derived the fixed-gear 205/206/207 Stationair line from the 210's cabin and wing structure. Anyone cross-shopping our Skylane or Stationair pages is, genealogically, looking at the 210's relatives.

The airframe evolved through more distinct variants than almost any other Cessna single. Early 210/210A/210B/210C models (1960-63) kept the strut-braced wing shared with the 182. The 210D (1964) introduced the "Centurion" name and a 285-hp Continental IO-520-A. The most consequential change came with the 1967 210G: Cessna replaced the strut-braced wing with a cantilever design, eliminating the external wing struts for a cleaner, faster airframe. Three years later, the 1970 210K became the first true six-seat Centurion, using longer, tapered main gear struts to make room for a third seat row. Turbocharging (via the optional and later standard Continental TSIO-520 series) pushed service ceilings toward 27,000 feet and true airspeeds past 200 knots in the P210 pressurized variants introduced in 1978.

Specifications

Specs vary meaningfully by year and variant — normally aspirated vs. turbo vs. pressurized P210, strut-wing (pre-1967) vs. cantilever wing (1967+), four-seat (pre-1970) vs. six-seat (1970+). Confirm the specific year's POH before financing or purchase decisions.

A model line with real engineering milestones

Few single-engine Cessnas changed as much across their production run as the 210. The 1967 210G's switch to a cantilever wing was a genuine engineering leap — it cut drag, improved cruise speed, and gave the airplane its now-familiar clean-wing silhouette. The 1970 210K then solved the Centurion's biggest limitation for family and business flying by adding a true third row of seats, something the strut-wing, four-seat models never offered. By the mid-1970s the 210L (1972-76, with 2,070 built) had become the best-selling variant in the lineup, adding a third propeller blade, 24-volt electrical system, and nose landing/taxi lights. The pressurized P210N, introduced in 1978, brought cabin pressurization to a single-engine piston nearly a decade before the market saw anything comparable, letting pilots operate comfortably in the high teens and low twenties without supplemental oxygen.

That performance came with a maintenance and inspection profile buyers should understand going in. On May 21, 2012, the FAA issued an Emergency Airworthiness Directive requiring inspection of roughly 3,665 cantilever-wing 210s for wing spar and spar-cap cracking, grounding aircraft with more than 10,000 hours pending visual inspection. More recently, following a May 2019 in-flight wing separation on a Cessna T210M traced to a fatigue crack at the wing-spar carry-through, Textron issued mandatory service letter SEL-57-06 and the FAA followed with a February 2020 AD mandating eddy-current inspections of the carry-through spar's lower cap on affected aircraft, along with corrective action and a protective coating where needed. We flag this not to discourage ownership — thousands of 210s fly safely every year — but because a pre-purchase logbook review confirming AD compliance is a genuinely important step for this specific airframe, and it's exactly the kind of detail our underwriting process checks for before structuring a loan.

2026 context: no current Cessna piston offers retractable gear

Textron Aviation's current single-engine piston lineup — the Skyhawk, Skylane, and Turbo Stationair, all reconfirmed at Textron's EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2026 booth this July — is entirely fixed-gear. Nothing in new production replaces the speed and utility the 210 Centurion offered with retractable gear and, in the P210, cabin pressurization. For a buyer who wants genuine 190+ knot cross-country speed from a single-engine piston today, the realistic new-aircraft alternatives sit in a different category entirely: turboprops like the Cessna Grand Caravan EX, several price classes above a classic Centurion. That gap is a big part of why well-maintained 210s, particularly later turbo and pressurized variants, continue to hold real value in the used market more than three decades after the last one left the factory.

What financing a Centurion looks like

Asking prices for 210s span an unusually wide range because the model name covers nearly three decades of variants: normally aspirated 210s from the 1960s-70s can trade well under $100,000, later turbocharged T210s commonly land in the $150,000-$300,000 range depending on engine time and avionics, and well-equipped pressurized P210s can approach or exceed $400,000-$500,000. Retractable gear, a turbocharger (on T210/P210 variants), and pressurization (on P210s) add complexity relative to the fixed-gear 182 or 206 — all things our underwriting looks at alongside engine and prop time, logbook completeness, and AD compliance history, including the wing-spar inspections noted above. Terms up to 20 years are available on qualifying classic piston singles, with down payments typically in the 15%-20% range; pressurized and more complex variants are evaluated individually.

210 Centurion vs. its fixed-gear relatives

See our dedicated pages for the Cessna 182 Skylane and Cessna 206 Stationair if fixed-gear simplicity matters more to your mission than the Centurion's extra speed and altitude capability.