How Old

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Being inclined to go for old - I have a 68 11A Landrover - I'm looking for an old Merc. Pre 72 would be best for tax free into the bargain. What do I do now?
 

popuptoaster

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pre '73 by the way, a W115 or W114 will do the job, they bridge the free tax cut off, buy a non rusty one and you'll love it, 90% of parts still avaialble at good (Mercedes reduce prices for old models to keep the business) prices and a W115 will easily cope with modern traffic, the deisels are slooooow though and the petrol 6's are a bit thirsty, mine does about 20mpg but i dont care, it will still run at well over 110mph if i want it to to.

Basically spend a bit of time hunting down the right car and you'll be hooked, they can be had with electric wibndows, electric sunroof, central locking and air con etc etc, they have discs all round, power steering and the auto boxes are lovely, they handle ok as well if you can ignore the amount they lean over, boot is big and the saloons have plenty of room in the back seats, i use my coupe as my everyday car and its not even a particulally great example, minty, perfect coupes can be bought for around 7 grand and the saloons from about 5, but if you want to do the work yourself, the last three i bought cost me me £220, £450 and £600 so they can be bought cheap as well.

If your into modifying cars then under the skin these are the same as the old SL and SLC sports cars, so you can transplant in the V8 lumps and the LSD rear end from those pretty easily, the suspension and brakes is the same on them anyway though, having said that, the twin cam straight 6 2.8 in mine makes 180bhp anyway though so she'll shift well enough to suprise modern cars occasionally.


Have some pics for inspiration. :D

Strich_8-Treffen_-_250_CE_Cockpit.jpg


strich821.jpg


strich8.jpg


pancake.jpg


DSCF0007-tiltshift.jpg


image6484.jpg
 

SQ_W211

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wow that makes me want to have one of these bad boys but being merc they probably need evrything re-doing and could be a very expensive project but i guess if you have handy skills and time to spend then i would always recommend buying one of these
 

popuptoaster

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parts prices are not all bad, headlight lens from mercedes is £16+VAT next day delivery from any MB dealer for instance, injection engine parts can be dear, as can some trim parts, but no dearer than for a modern car, and at least you can still buy most of it from a dealer.

No reason an old benz will need loads of work either, just buy a good one in the first place 7 grand (ish) will get you a perfect example and it wont be depreciating like a more modern car will be, thats MB class with proper old school build quality not like a modern Merc's built to a price design.

What modern merc you gonna buy for that and how much would it be worth in a few years time, with no gaurantee that it wont cost you money to fix that one either?


I'm running my 450 quid coupe as my daily driver and other than a coil and a fuel pump both failing in the first couple of months its been fine, and as i gradually do jobs on it its getting more valuable not less.
 
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