Mercedes Youngtimers

The way was long and rough. With other words: Oily, very expensive and full of sweat.

And still, where is the end of it???

I, not like the other ones, can not plead any kind of childhood's Benz related trauma.
Because of the poorness of my family I'm socialized on zsigulis. Even my mother's "You
must got into a bad company" version is false. OK, later it has happened, but the cause and effect relationship was the opposit.

Once I got the idea from nothing, that I need a Mercedes and because I got a permanent
job,where I had to go day by day, I had a cause to buy one. At least I believed it.
Actually also my surrounding did, but they thought a little bit different way.
They always asked the basic questions: How old is it? How big is the engine? What??? A
petrol engine??? Consumption? And so on...
For this questions I could tell them only bad answers. Because I'm an honest guy. But
because I had so bad answers for all the questions, everyone only told: OK funny boy,
you'll be allright.

But they sucked.

I started to seek cars. I was nearly fired from my new job because of the phone bill,
and later not nearly.

Only 126ers for peanuts. Not the winner combination as it turned out later.
But I made the best out of the situation (I did not buy a diesel one), when after making
thousands of kilometers and checking dozens of wrecks, I got enough and I decided that no way I will go home from Szombathely by train. And I did not.

I've bought the white (where it was not iron oxide brown) 280SE with LPG.

For your information, It was my first own car, so I was a newbie and it was in 2003.
I did not even dare to ask for any advice from anyone. A friend of mine, Zsolti was the only one who didn't want send me directly to the resticrated class. Thanks god, he only
helped me on phone. If he had seen the car, for sure now I'm in the Suzuki club.

I asked:
- Hey Zsolti! It's quite rusty. Is it a big problem?
- Yes, it is. But how?
- Quite. So, should I buy it or not.
- You should know.

And I knew, because there was about -5 degrees outside and Szombathely is very far away from Pécs by train and the heating was working in the car. (it's already gone)

From 700 thousand I made a bargain to 550 (2000Euro) and I gladly drove home the "beauty"

As it turned out later, it was not running with petrol, what seemed to be not a big
deal, and later on 3 years and replacing the complete fuel system several times, solved the problem.
On the way home at about 190 km/h, the screw nails gave up holding the hub caps so they took me over one after the other and landed in the bushes beside the road. For the first one, I stopped, but after half an hour searching I gave up. Until I arrived home all of
them were gone.
At home I took a look at the documents. According to them I bought a '78 240D. Nice. At
least the brand was correct.

I have to admit, everything was official and either the WIN and engine number was
correct. The age turned to be an advantage when I had a youngtimer insurance to it.

It looked this way:

OK, it had also some excellences:
- It was running
- Heating system was working
- The engine was in a quite good condition (except the fuel systemand some oil leakage)
- The black leather interior was in a perfect condition
- Also the ABS was working, and nearly everything because it had not so much options
(now it has)  Even the sun roof was working. Ok in the opening direction, but not in the closing.

I think that's all. Yeah, and I fell in love with it. And I'm still in love.

And what it became?

This:

How? I think you can read some more years about it, until I finish this story.
Endurance! Guess how much I needed of it.

cuming soon...