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One of the biggest challenges we face when contemplating cars from a distance is that it’s difficult to judge a book by its cover. We’re at the mercy of the images and what the seller is willing to disclose in order to form a judgement. I’d like to think that most of the time we get it right and spot items that are perhaps warning signs to a larger problem. But, perhaps inevitably, we definitely have gotten some wrong. That brings us to today’s car, which Andrew wrote up back in 2016:
1993 Mercedes-Benz 300CE
Andrew felt at the time that it was a very clean example with a reasonable price. And, as luck would have it, one of our readership took the plunge and bought the car without a PPI. But it didn’t go quite as one would hope the story would, as it turned out there were some undisclosed problems which popped up. Today the car is back for sale with a lot of the heavy lifting done and some more stories to add to its pages:
It seems like every so often a car pops up that somehow has completely fallen off everyone’s radar – including the owner. Usually it is some story about how they were bought for a business but shut down suddenly and everything was left as-is, or how an owner bought the car and suddenly passed leaving the car sit while the family had other things to deal with. Sometimes you might hear about how someone bought a car and stashed it away thinking it’ll be worth big money sometime in the future. As a result, most of these cars have but a few thousand miles – maybe somewhere in the hundreds – but I can’t recall seeing too many cars with this few miles.
This 1988 Mercedes-Benz 300CE up for sale in Poland has just 98 kilometers on the odometer. For those who live their lives in miles, that is roughly 60. That’s it. How did this happen? I don’t know. The seller says that this car was originally sold in Sweden where it sat in a barn for the past 30 years before somehow ending up in Poland. It has never been washed and everything is included from when it left the dealer’s lot. Problem is, this C124 isn’t exactly a time capsule as you might have noticed by the photo. On second thought, it maybe is a time capsule, only one of those that wasn’t sealed correctly and when they dig it up to open it, everything inside is ruined from water damage. Yes, that’s more like it.
If you want to get into the Mercedes-Benz W124 world but don’t want to pay the big prices that the 500E/E500 commands, there are a few other options if you need that little extra bit over a standard offerings. Mercedes did just that with the Sportline option on the coupes, sedans and even the estate cars, and it gave you a more that just some cool little badges. While you didn’t get a horsepower bump, you did get a bunch of revised suspension components, wider wheels and tires, a quicker ratio steering box and a smaller steering wheel. Worth it? Probably so. Visually, you can’t really tell a Sportline car from a regular W124 outside of those little badges, so when hunting for these cars you do really need to have a keen eye when searching through the mass of W124s for sale at any time. Thankfully, people are starting to recognize these cars are more desirable to some and thus listing them as Sportline cars, like today’s car – a 1993 300CE with just 39,000 miles. Problem is, this dealer outside of Chicago is asking a ton of money for the honor of that badge. How much? Well, you’re well into 500E asks here:
I’ve said this before, but I want to reiterate it once again. The Mercedes-Benz W124 Coupe has quickly become the next classic Mercedes that everyone is searching Craigslist and their neighbors garages for clean examples to snatch up. For the longest time these were just another old Mercedes that was a really good car in its heyday but time soon passed by for newer cars. Well, now that it is very clear that cars like the W124 won’t be made again and the gold rush has started for the pillarless coupe. Some of these really nice cars, especially face lifted E320 Coupes, have been bringing five-figure prices regularly and there doesn’t seem to be a short of willing buyers — myself included. Thankfully, there still seems to be a few of these cars out there for sale that represent good value if you want to get in one of these. This example up for sale in Eastern Pennsylvania seems to be just that. Don’t get too excited though, this one is far from a showroom example.
Buying any used car carries some sort of risk and gamble. Probably even more so with a used German car because of the potential disaster that some cars may bring. The majority of the time, you trust yourself to form an opinion if the car is worth it based off what you understand and what the seller is telling you about the car. Most of the time this works out pretty well for both parties involved. Generally as the stakes get higher and the cars get more expensive, the more due diligence is done with research and inspections. Sometimes you can sniff out a car pretty quickly but other times you might need a really keen eye to see what is really going on. For today’s car, a 1991 Mercedes-Benz 300CE for in Brooklyn, maybe isn’t all that is presented to be by the seller. Let me explain why.
