I’ve got two pictures to tell a story. That’s all, two little pix. So this shan’t taketh too much of your precious time. Pondering this gnarled veteran, we’ve all seen it (or was that perhaps another that looked just like it?). It might be here in Fort Collins, Colorado, but then again it might just as well be somewhere in Namibia, perhaps parked in Provence, or rampaging around Mongolia. Paris is a certainty, Tokyo the Stuttgart of the Orient, Baghdad in the bag, Marrakesh might as well be Mainz. And Beijing, well, in black it fits right in there as well.
Rio de Janeiro, Christchurch, and London’s West End (along with the North, South, East and whatever other Ends there may be) would be familiar stomping grounds as well while conversely new beginnings elsewhere upon a sale would form new friends generations apart, young and old, big and small, rich and poor, in town or across the lands. In short, and I don’t usually do short, this denizen of the world has been and still is everywhere, seen it all, done even more, and yet is ready for whatever the next challenge might be.
Even if the challenge is just to fit in at the lumberyard in what sometimes seems like Truck Central, USA. TurboDiesel engine, check! Trailer hitch, check! Rack for the ladder, check! Capable of driving through muddy landscapes, apparently check! Able to last many hundreds of thousands of miles, check!
But at the end of the day, or week, or season, or year, perhaps it’ll see the business end of a hose and wash mitt and clean up well enough to sparkle under the city lights as it surely did around forty years ago when it was still wearing dealer plates; bright eyed and taking in all the new sights and sounds far from its place of birth. One car for all things, and all things for one car, in various forms from luxury coupe to family sedan to vacation hauler or workhorse wagon, Mercedes-Benz’s 123 series. One man’s taxicab is another man’s luxury car is another’s mobile office is yet another’s tool, which in the end may all be the same exact thing to different people on different continents on different days. Or perhaps even on the same day.
Yes, boys and girls, there is such a thing as a beater Benz!
Haha, this reminds me of a scene from my youth when my mother hired a guy to come to the house for a little carpentry work. He arrived in an old dark green Benz sedan, one from the late 60s. The saw horses and the power tools came out of the trunk, he did his work, and then he was gone. I am glad to see that some people still used a Mercedes that way (at least in the US where it is not very common).
And it appears that this car still has enough presence that no kids have used their fingers to write “wash me” in the dirt. That may be OK to do to an old Chevy van, but not to one of these.
First car I had when I moved to Germany. It was a few years old but other than that it was a great automobile. Traded it on a 1996 E-Class Cabrio that I am still driving!
As of seven years ago when I decamped from NYC these were still plentiful in the tonier neighborhoods of Manhattan. They’d come out of their underground lairs to ferry their owners out to Long Island or into the mountains, might be street parked occasionally, often to load or unload baggage, kids, dogs or purchases, then put back into hibernation for weeks or months until needed again. They’re tools, like a good Craftsman adjustable wrench. They just do their job when necessary.
I remember such Benzes as workhorses here in Italy too. When I was a kid (I’m 28) they were still diffuse, particularly I remember a fruit street vendor in my town had a white 240 TD, very battered (has had until early 10s) and a plumber who did maintenance works at my grandma’s house had a blue 200 T converted to LPG (until mid 00s I think) 😉
Did you get to see – smell – it run…and if so, did it smell like french fries or donuts? Converting these to biodiesel (i.e., ex-fryolator oil) was a big thing out here a while back. Particularly in crunchier areas like Western Mass and VT. I used to see/smell them all of the time. Maybe with the return of higher diesel prices, that’s come back into fashion.
There’s still a pretty good number of these around Eugene, and often getting used like this. We have at least one garage that caters to old diesel Benzes. Their lot is jammed with them.
Wow ~ if I ever gt my Sweet’s fully optioned graymarket 300TD this dirty she’d kill me .
Yes, the mighty world beating W123 was and still is a workhorse .
My favorite one is my 1982 240D plodder, the cheap model with no radio or other options when new, it’s still soldiering on after close to forty years and over 407,000 miles .
-Nate
BTW : veggie oil is what killed close to half of these cars, it’s incredibly laborious and time consuming to make the “FREE FUEL !” properly .
If any Diesel smokes visibly, it’s not correctly maintained .
-Nate
Used oil must be carefully filtered and dewatered or you have a dead diesel, I cart edible oil everyday but we arent running the trucks on it…yet.
Indeed. I don’t believe that many of those home-made biodiesel conversions ran too long. Getting a steady supply of used oil was one thing, the cost of a proper conversion was another. Much more challenging than pulling up at the donut store and saying “Fill ‘er Up!” 🙂
So, the famous crenellated taillights don’t actually work as advertised. I knew it!
The W123 estate is a real classic – a true all time great in my book.
Interesting to see one without a rear wiper though.
All that flankdirt, distributed as it is, makes me think thinky thoughts about one of these wagons with big American woodgrain Di-Noc.
I think this one must have Eco-Noc.
Flat beige may be a hip color by now so I say leave the mud on there.