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What if I told you that Mercedes-Benz made a W123 slower and less powerful than the 240D? Thankfully it was never sold in the US, but the 200D does exist. It came in at 54 horsepower and 83 lb-ft of torque, which is impressive that the engineers thought this was adequate for the year 1977. My whole thing is that I don’t care if cars are slow, I care if cars are dangerously slow. When you get stuck on hills, that’s not fun. When the car doesn’t have enough power to merge into oncoming traffic, that is a problem for everyone. So a Sunday evening drive out in the country, sure. Any kind of commuting or highway? Not a chance.
This example up for sale Oklahoma City now only checks in with the impressive 54 horsepower and 83 lb-ft of torque, but also has the steering wheel on the right side. An odd ball to say the least.
Thanks the Mercedes-Benz W463 chassis from running 1990 all the way to 2008 on the same platform, you do get some mixing and matching going on in terms of body parts. However, almost every time it is someone sticking late model bumpers and grilles on an early example, but touching nothing in the interior so when you open the door you are mightily confused. I really don’t like that as the early example and anything pre-2002 in the US is a rare bird that should be left alone. However, today’s 2002 G500 is a little different situation. This is not a bolt-on bumpers job – not even close.
While the M5 may have the notoriety of being the first serious super performance sedan, it’s easy to forget that Mercedes-Benz really started the trend. As early as the 1930s, Mercedes-Benz was building some of the fastest large cars in the marketplace. They were expensive, complicated, and beautiful works of engineering. It took a while post-war for both the marketplace and the company to come back to full strength, but two cars created in the midst of an international oil crisis I really think point towards the character of their respective companies. First was BMW’s hard-edged, barely disguised racer for the road, the 3.0CSL – which we sort of just looked at. It was expensive, relatively lightweight, stunning to look at and pretty quick to boot – a sporting nature that would carry through to the current generation of BMWs, still considered the benchmark in sporting sedans. On the other side of the fence was the 450SEL 6.9; who else but Mercedes-Benz would put the largest production V8 into a sedan when there was a gas crisis? If the 3.0 shouted about it’s racing prowess, the Mercedes was subtle and understated. Indeed, option number 261 even removed the displacement badge on the rear, and outside of that you’d only see hints of the car’s performance by the bulging tires and slightly more showy exhaust. But stomp on the loud pedal and the best part of 290 horsepower was on tap for you – and this was 1975. Remember 1975? It was when the base Corvette had 165 horsepower and if you wanted to just break 200, the L-82 was your only option at 205 horsepower. A full 40% more powerful, the Benz was the match for sports cars of the day in a straight line but offered extreme luxury at the same time:
I harp a lot about the W220 Mercedes-Benz S-Class and how it might be the most disappointing flagship the team Stuttgart has ever launched. It was the year 2000 and this car fit in quite well for the time, just like oversized baggy suits and trucker hats. Well, all those were donated to the Goodwill during spring cleaning 2005, but the early W220s lived on and still roam the earth to this date. A lot of these are now on their 12th owner and look like this, but some of these survived, and this is what we have today.
This 2000 is finished in Bordeaux Red Metallic, which is not to be confused with Titanite Red Metallic from a few weeks ago, and inside with find a Java leather interior. It is quintessential early-W220 with the blobby 17″ wheels to match the body. Inside, much of the same with a two-tone dash and that very tiny COMAND navigation system that was a slight upgrade from the maps in The Legend of Zelda. So if no one wants it, is it actually worth anything? Seems to be.
Long live the W123, may it ride forever. It probably will too, if not for one eternal enemy that we’ll get into in a moment. There seems to be no mechanical limit to these machines as long as a reasonable amount of effort is put into regular maintenance and repairs. A few weeks ago we saw a 1979 300TD with over 782,000 miles sell for nearly $10,000, and that probably wasn’t even nearing the end of it’s life.
Today, we have the trust 240D with the OM616 paired with the basic 4-speed manual gearbox. There is no much to go wrong with this, except maybe the clock turns fast than you are able to accelerate. This example is finished in English Red, which is more like bring orange, but none the less a great color. The catch? Well, I wish it was easier to fix.
