Patience pays. I have been looking for about 3 years for 126 SD to replace my 350k + miles '83 SD. I just bought a one owner 1982 300SD with 70,00 miles and in great condition. Everything works, all service records--even has a Mercedes battery. The spare rim has never been rotated to the car and thus, in showroom condition. The medical packet has never been opened. And she runs like a sewing machine.
All for $6500.
I'm in love again.
So if you're looking, keep the faith.
(The same week I found a '84 300SD in Oregon with 32,000 miles and in mint condition...for $12,000! It was so nice I would be afraid to drive it. So I went with the '82)
Sounds great! It's fantastic when you get something you have been hanging on for isn't it. As for how she runs; I just pray that she doesn't start doing zig-zag :o) Mike
Mercedes runs a big classic car center in Stuttgart, where they gather spare parts for old cars. AFAIK they also do every sort of restoration you can afford. Besides that they buy cars which are regarded as the classics of the future and restore them. The last car I have heard of was the Mercedes R107 roadster. As a rule of thumb Mercedes regards their cars "classic" three decades after their introduction. Actually I do not know if they also will care for the W123 (introduced in 1976)
I heard this from my friend who has a friend who worked for MB dealer... so I assume the answer is real deal. However, I am not sure the price... I believe it is $15,000 maybe it is $20,000... and I am positive the car will be shipped back to MB in Germany.
Besides the fact a fixed price makes no sense a full restoration is _much_ more expensive if you have to pay for it - a painting alone can cost more than 15.000.
MB would make significant losses with such an offer.
That would be a bad deal for me - even after the restoration the car would be worth less than he 15 (or even 20) grand; it would be wiser to spend that amount of money on a newer MB so after only 21+ years on the W123 diesel sedans maybe it is time to look for another MB ;-)
A few years back Nissan bought up a bunch of old Datsun 240Z's and restored them, for sale, at Nissan dealerships. During the course of the program they also arranged with owners to take their privately owned Z cars in, for the restoration, at the same price. The price was $25,000. Various afficianados of Z's calculated that you could privately do the same job that the factory was doing at a somewhat lower price. The private job would not, of course, have the factory stamp on it and would certainly command less value, if sold.
If the Mercedes restoration program everybody is speaking about is for real the Nissan program should give you a low end range benchmark on the price. One, of course, would expect that it would be more expensive to restore any Mercedes, in Germany, than a Datsun 240Z in Japan. For example, Nissan dealers will sell you a factory rebuilt 280ZX engine for $1300-1400. Try to get a factory rebuilt Mercedes engine for that price.
I know whereof I speak, I have two Mercedes and two Z's
If for some strange reason Daimler-Chrysler has lost its mind and will indeed fully restore an old Benz for $15,000, I for one, would like to sign up. Who cares about resale value - I'd just drive the car for another 20 years.
Frank, do you know anything about the California restoration shop? I read about it in Road & Track maybe 2 years ago (or 3) and it was in the finishing stages of being built at the time, and apparently Cali was going to be for newer classics and Stuttgart for older classics. Richard
No. Never heard about it. It is not common for german car enthusiasts to have their car restored in the US and bring it to germany afterwards. Just the opposite: US restoration jobs have an extremely bad reputation over here. We think most of them are just quick showroom-restorations with a shiny surface over a crappy job. Classic cars from the US usually are worse than they look. Besides this MB Stuttgart boasts to take care for all cars ever sold. In general many people over here think about having their car restored in countries of the former soviet block, which are now EU members. First of all, people over there are capable to do fantastic craftmanship (If you cannot buy a part new, you learn how to repair it), and second the hourly rates for mechanics are much lower than in Germany. So a sheetmetal job, which includes a lot of trimming, welding and smoothing, may be profitable if done in Czech republic, poland or hungary.
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