I’ve never met the owner of this car, but I might as well be the owner of this car. You’re about to encounter a fair bit of snark in this post, but believe me, I can relate to this kid.
Can’t you just smell the optimism?
I think he and I probably have much in common, such as a certain taste for the finer things in life, or what used to be finer things, at least.
Like this 420 SEL, for example.
Sure, you can blather on about “German Engineering” and attention to detail and the fact that this car’s American contemporaries where still rather large, broughamly piles of crap, but none of that is why the person who I imagine bought this car bought this car.
No, I’d bet you a lunch at Burger King that the owner of this car bought this puppy for the hood ornament.
THAT hood ornament. Lord knows we like a good one, and that, my friends, is a good one.
People who drive old, clapped-out beaters and attend community college are of two sorts, mostly: young high school graduates just stepping out into the world, and older jerks like me, who stepped out long ago and want to step back in some other direction.
No, this car isn’t owned by anyone who has ever had their clock cleaned by an aging German luxury car before. This car, I contend, is owned by a kid who doesn’t (yet) know any better. A dreamer. An optimist! Just like the optimist I was the time I bought my first old Lincoln and before having my soul stomped to a fine talc-like powder to be scattered into the wind by a wheezy, ticking heater blower motor.
Of course, this Benz’s kid is an optimist with pretty good taste in mid-’80s import sedans, if I may add, but also one with a world of potential financial pain lurking just around the corner with every odd mechanical or electrical failure.
As awful as my first Town Car was in so many ways, it always took me wherever I wanted to go. I’d be afraid to ask the kid if he’s had the same luck with this once-mighty big S. On the other hand, as a Volkswagen technician I learned that owners of unreliable German automobiles are able to equivocate their cars’ myriad failures at a level that even the most felonious politicians could salute.
Yes, perhaps the owner knows a fellow student across campus in enrolled in the auto body classes. This car’s body is actually pretty straight, and maybe if you could just cut that top layer of faded paint just right with a buffer…
…and if he could just get the console-mounted cell phone working, it would add a just-right retro touch, and the car is pre-wired for that hot stereo to be installed any day now. Also, being an S-Class, it features a steering wheel fit for a steamship with a high-tech airbag. (This car did not seem to have a passenger-side airbag, therefore leading me to believe it is a 1985 model.)
Yes, just a bit more buffing is needed back here, better grab that more aggressive compound for the roof. What size speakers did you say go in the rear shelf? (On second hand, when did Merc add the 3rd brake light to their cars?)
I almost always like tasteful ducktail spoilers as featured by this body kit. Was this a factory aero package? Does it have any special significance? Surely the readers will know. As I write this, my mind’s eye briefly attempted to substitute an early, maroon Taurus SHO here.
Yes, I’d say he’s a dreamer
But he’s not the only one
I hope some day you will join us
So you can drive us to AutoZone
I don’t think Autozone carries that $1700 water pump so better put on a nice collared shirt for the trip to the MB service department.
I just checked–$122.99 with the lifetime warranty, but they’ll have to order it.
They did, however, have plenty of stick-on ventiports in stock.
They always have to “order it”……
or at least get it from another store.
Venti-ports would be the icing on the turd cake that is this car.
Looking at the interior, I can almost feel how hot it is in there with the mostly inop a/c, the smell of decaying MB leather over horse hair, the de lamination veneer, the mild wiff of gas/oil and mystery odor.
Not sure about the body kit, all its missing is some AMG wheels and it would look like something a Miami Vice criminal would be driving when he got out of jail after serving 25 years for distributing Bolivian marching powder.
Vintage MB parts might not be Ford/GM/Chrysler cheap – but a water pump for the 420SEL is nowhere near $1700. A certain major parts website has a remanufactured unit for $37 and an OEM unit is $55.
Yeah, but RockAuto didn’t rhyme.
I almost bought two of these from a junk yard. Felt I needed two to have a chance at having transportation most of the time. For whatever reason I was slapped alongside the head with a flurry of common sense and didn’t do the deal. Wound up with a 67 El Camino instead. Maybe that wasn’t so smart after all. I have been equipped with good intention for most of my life. That’s not good for choosing the best old car to buy.
Daily root canals might be preferable.
It a was truly amazing vehicle designed with attention to details (GM achieved this level of design accuracy after, well, bankruptcy ). However it was masterpiece with just one flaw – pneumatic suspension that drove my buddy crazy and cost him lots of euros. He finally let it rust in the junkyard.
The 420 did not come with a pneumatic suspension. But the rest of the vehicle’s issues will almost certainly make up for it.
My ’89 didn’t have a passenger-side airbag either, but this has the earlier upholstery (long “slats” of leather), so maybe it’s an ’88 or earlier?
I know I’ve said it before, but my pristine-looking w126 was a heart-breaker, a wallet-drainer, and a breath-taker… until the day I let her go.
This CC should be crushed before she hurts another innocent victim. A car like the w126 should only be kept around if it’s in perfect shape and owned by someone who can afford to keep it that way.
The third brake light, the flush headlights, and the fact that it’s a 420SEL all signify ’86 or later. So, that narrows things a little bit…
I was gonna say, ’86 or ’87 myself.
…And that’s why you buy a W123 or W124 instead….
Replace the 420 Benz with a 63 Fleetwood and you are now telling my story. Now, repeat after me and my car-mentor Howard (who experienced some postwar V-12 Lincolns) : “Never buy an old luxury car because everything that breaks will cost at least 3 times what the same repair would cost on a regular car.”
Howard was talking pre-1970s American luxury cars, so I am prepared to increase the multiplier in the case of a post 1970s European luxury car. I start the bidding at 5 . . .
Burgandy too….I thought these only came in diffrent shades of gray.
I have often said there is nothing sadder than a decrepit old luxury car, a primered musclecar or a rough Camaro/pony car still has a certain charm, but a beat up ex-luxury car is sad, like a long abandonded grand hotel with vines growing through the ballroom floor, and its not particular to any brand, domestic, european, etc, they are all equally bad. Town Cars and Broughams with vinyl tops that are more of a combover now, and missing trim and fillers.
It reminds me of the 1st gen LS400 I saw on the road about a week or so ago with a pearl white body and a champagne colored entire front clip, the 3 out of the 4 windows that still worked were down in 95 degree heat, indicating that the a/c had long since given up the ghost. the tops of the rear headrests were blowing their upholshery like mini muffins out their dried out seams.
Comment of the day, Carmine!
Agree with hopelessly optimistic – dealing with the clear coat that is jumping off the body would be a good start, then there is the fact (well my opinion at least) that some cars weren’t meant to have body kits…
I saw an SEC coupe a while back sitting in an empty lot, nose-high indicating no engine, and I did think that it would be pretty cool with an LS2 in it. Basically treat the whole car as a hot rod, rewire etc from scratch but keep the aesthetics pretty standard.
No, this is a time capsule. First owner falling on hard times. It was probably “styled” to the hilt from new. The paint job, the body kit, the clear coat. Original car phone. Speakers and stereo system has been ripped out along the way.
This reminds me of what I call time capsule living. Some people buying a new house filled with new furniture, new carpets, contemporary art work, and so on. And they fill the house from top to bottom with whatever is the things to have that week. And then they call it a day, and never change a thing. Twenty years after the fact, their entire living seems positively anachronistic in all senses. I have seen homes like that stuck in 1972 or 1987.
The notion about this owner getting a twenty five year sentence doesn’t seem that wrong. Perhaps that coke deal went bust? Miami Vice was obviosly a stylistic ideal. It looks like he came out of detention last week just to be picked up in his old ride. Or perhaps he made it big, Gordon Gekko style, just to have everything but the car taken away circa 1989. Life in the fast lane…
Both my parents and grand parents houses were/are like that, stuck in the 1975-1980 time period, with the exception of things like TV’s and other wear items that have been replaced along the way.
It’s interesting to see houses like this, I also remember seeing a few years back a couple of cinemas – last of the twin cinemas before multiplexes took over, that were largely original inside, a real 1970’s flashback. One has been knocked down now, due to an expansion of the shopping centre it sat alongside (I understand that for a few years before that happened they were paying almost zero rent), I’m not sure if the other still exists. Trouble is, you can’t keep everything.
Been there, done that. In my case, it was a 1969 Imperial. Bought it for $1200 in Saskatchewan. It needed about $300 worth of work, but ran with a miss. I lost my job and headed back to Quebec, miss and all. Once I got to Quebec, I found that the miss was caused by a cracked spark plug. Not a lot of room around the back driver’s side of a 440 and the plug must have gotten cracked during installation.
I was out of money and sold it. Got what I paid for it, so including repairs, insurance, even gas, it cost be about a hundred dollars a month for the six months I had it.
All the rust it didn’t get in Saskatchewan caught up with it, though. A year later I saw it again and the poor thing looked like it had spent its entire life in the rust belt. Too bad.
The German mechanic saved me from buying a glorious 1986 560SEC once …
“Don’t buy zhe car.”
“Why not?”
“At first, it needs head gasket.”
[Done that before on a Saab] “OK, so?”
“No, you don’t underschtand. Is aluminum V-8 engine. Thirty-two schtuds to remove und zey vill strip zhe threads. Even zhe Mercedes mechanics don’t like to do zhis. Is MINIMUM t’ree tousand dollar job.”
“Oh.”
But it was SUCH a glorious car…
Yup! One of my friend’s first jobs was at a MB dealership. He told me the story of the guy who drove in with an oil leak, and drove out $15K lighter with an entire new engine! This pretty much cured me.
But the baby-benzes with the turbodiesel and a 5-speed manual, ooooh! I would buy one in a heartbeat if it was in pristine condition.
Here’s what one looks like with about $11,000 worth of work in the last 50k miles…
http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2011/08/rent-lease-sell-or-keep-1989-mercedes-benz-420-sel/
Holy crap, you got that thing for a steal. I want that car. If any more expensive repairs come up, I can just sell my son. No biggy.
Dear Lord…on today, of all days? Let me tell you about my morning so far (it’s 11:07am local time and lots can still happen). Wake up to arrange a tilt tray for one W108 with a blown head gasket. And they can fix the fan clutch while they’re under the hood. So now I can get the W116 out of the garage and drive until said W108 returns. The sensor for the thermo fan is dead but it’s autumn and traffic shouldn’t be too bad. It’s noted for fixing at the 315,000 km service. Say…what’s this? Not stopping good, hard pedal. Oh, that would be a faulty brake booster. No kits available, they’re pricing new for me now. Home via a taxi to resurrect the W112 coupe for commuting. Got coupe and left without fully explaining circumstances to understandably impatient wife. When they’re good they’re very, very good. When things finally break it’s a living hell. I don’t know why I do this, at the best of times nobody’s ever impressed, so that ain’t it. Augggh!
Wow, this one looks rather weathered though the interior looks OK. That paint is so sun blasted the clear coat has peeled off and is baking the color layer underneath and you can see that around the edges of the blistered areas where it’s a thin white border.
A buddy I’ve known for 40 years still has his 85 300D turbo diesel wagon he bought from the original owner several years ago while commuting an hour or so to Bremerton from Tacoma and needed a good highway cruiser that also got decent mileage.
The original owner bought it new in SoCal so the car was sun baked already in that tan/beige paint with clear coat, though it looks decent enough even though the non metallic paint’s clearcoat has peeled off in places. The dash is cracked and the AC vents (round) have sunken into the dash though he has gotten it working, rebuilt the motor, the transmission (automatic) and had to rebuilt the turbo as the students goofed and the turbo got fried.
The car still has some issues, like a vacuum leak so you can’t just shut it off without popping the hood and futzing with a vacuum line until the car stops running and the ignition switch’s return spring is broken so once the car is started, you have to manually return the key back to the on position. The original audio system was replaced with an aftermarket CD head unit years ago and it has an alarm, put in at the time it was new, don’t know if factory or not and it has a sunroof if I recall and yes, it still works as do the power windows if I’m not mistaken.
There is a 1982 240D sedan in that same beige/tan paint, saddle tan leather interior for sale for $800 and looks to still have the factory speakers at least and they appear to be dinky 4″ jobs in the rear parcel shelf and I think smaller 3″ units up in the dash top locations. It’s paint is not pristine either and it needs a good cleaning but still largely intact though and looks to be in decent enough original shape still.
Hard to say what size speakers this car had, the housings look large enough to hold 6×9 speakers or components, though I doubt components were an original equipment offering with these but could be wrong).
My BIL David just bought a 2001 Mercedes Benz E320, I think sedan in that metallic green with white, I think leather interior. Looks really, really nice and it replaced a high mileaged 2000 or so Town Car that was beginning to have issues.
So, your BIL got rid of “a high mileaged 2000 or so Town Car that was beginning to have issues.”
I know someone who had an E320 of that vintage. Your BIL only THOUGHT he had issues. He is about to be introduced to what issues really are.
Amen to that.
The gas-powered models are a repair and maintenance nightmare by now. However- the 300SD with its indestructible 3.0 liter 5-cylinder turbodiesel seems like a viable alternative if you don’t mind the noise and the lazy acceleration.
I seriously considered grabbing an SD, fabbing my own cold air intake / intercooler setup, with a low restriction exhaust. Just throw on a set of classic AMG or Lorinser rims and roll in style!
I’ve long wanted a W116 300SD, although I’ve never had the opportunity of testing that desire by actually trying to own one. Probably a good thing.
“On the other hand, as a Volkswagen technician I learned that owners of unreliable German automobiles are able to equivocate their cars’ myriad failures at a level that even the most felonious politicians could salute.”
True! Loaded VWs and Audis are popular with white collar types in Bostonia who are replacing the Corolivics that got them through college and first job. Then they go back to Toyota when they have kids and no longer can afford a finicky German dependent.
I just bought a 1982 300SD for $900 as a fixer upper project. Am I crazy? Probably. It does have a very straight body (paint is faded but not burned) and only 120k miles. No major vacuum issues. These diesels seem to command silly prices, so I hope to fix it up for a $1000 and sell it for $3000. It’s very easy to find nice ones in the junkyard so “restoring” it shouldn’t be too expensive…wish me luck…
Not a bad strategy, especially with the gas prices coming this summer.
Also helps to be in a part of the country where a lot of other (bio)diesel fans live.
I flipped a diesel vehicle a few years ago myself, but counting all of the time I put into it, it wasn’t really worth it overall.
“Her mind is Tiffany-twisted, she got the Mercedes bends
She got a lot of pretty, pretty boys she calls friends”