'What Could Possibly Go Wrong?' - Week 1.5

The 90s C-Class is a bit of a mixed bag Merc in that you'd think 'ah, but it was pre-all that Chrysler nonsense' but the fact of the matter is that it was not a patch on the W201/190. It breaks, it rusts and it looks bollocks. It probably looked modern in its day - in fact, it looks reasonably modern now - but there is nothing to it that tugs on the heartstrings like a W124 or even a cooking spec 190E. Even the slabby W140 had character in a way that you just knew that they would never make anything quite like it again. And at the end of the way, given that everything in Germany went down the toilet post 1989 those cars are from a byegone era when Stuttgart relentlessly overengineered everything.

For proof, check the classifieds. You'd probably fetch little or nothing for a C180 Classic manual, worse again if it didn't even have a sunroof but plop a W124 or a base-spec 190E into the classifieds and there would be a race to the door.

It would be a different kind of a race to the door though. Africans have probably bought up every W124 in the country because they just ask on the phone if it runs. They don't ask how it runs, because they know that it takes multiple organ failure to stop a W124. 

Even in Germany, W124s have replaced the Mk2 Golf (probably THE best cheap used car of all times) as a stoic reminder of what people can achieve if they just engineer something correctly. 

W124s grace bargain basement banger dealer forecourts on city outskirts alongside old E34s and E32s. Their large plastic steering wheels might have been replaced with aftermarket offerings, the tasty 'gully lid' rims are probably now AMG monoblocks and the Becker/BMW Business headunits were torn out long ago in favour of Aldi 'Tevion' units but those cars are still there, trucking along through all kinds of neglect, proof to their longlivity and sheer toughness.

So what would it actually take to land one of those three pointed stars onto your driveway? Truth be told, very little. This €1,200 C280 Sport sits in the classifieds somewhat forelorn. It looks reasonably smart, the mileage is steep-ish but probably not the end of the road yet. The alloys are tidy and original, the body clean and all that spoils the parked-on-grass awesomeness is a drawbar and a slushbox. Now, they probably couldn't be got in manual form, but then again this particular carbon fibre-esque trimmed gear lever comes with an 'S' mode so you should be able to get that V6 singing somehow. You might have to worry about what exactly it has been towing but the spec (see pictures) is another pro, as is a recently achieved ticket, but you'll need your eyes wide open and your haggling boots on to make this a €1000 hero.

http://cars.donedeal.ie/for-sale/cars/3767163