just bought first 123 turbo, and wow!

[dropnosky]

just found a 1983 300D POS out in the boonies where I live for 200 bucks. This will be the fourth 123 ive owned and fixed up, but the first one with the 5 cylinder turbo. I started with a nice 83 5 cylinder naturally aspirated grey market at first, and that model seems to have little more power that both the 240 4 speeds I got next, and I guess I just never got the full taste of the turbo sedan.

I bought this 300D off of some punk kid who hit a deer with it and trashed the front left fender, grill, signal, headlight, and covered the whole car with blood and hair. Other than that, it has no exhaust, leaks a quart of oil an hour, shifts incorrectly, has 4 bald tires, and generally shows that some punk kid owned it. Even with all these problems, the car is a rocket in comparison to the 240. I dont know if im ever going to be able to go back, I will have to put a 4 speed in this one.

however, shes got potential, no rust, clean paint where there is no blood and hair, and clean nice interior. I am continually amazed at how these models can survive such incredible abuse, and climb back up to luxury sedan

[AnthroProfessor]

You got some good deal.

Do you have space for all four of those babies?

Sometimes people dump their 300Ds at the pick ur part for a bit of money just to get rid of the old car. A lot of cases, those cars would have been excellent restoration projects.


I would be giving all these 300Ds a home, I just literally don't have space. I am lucky that I can keep two babies.

[dropnosky]

wish I still had all of them, the grey market 300D I traded for the 79 240D, and I am still kicking myself right now. This was before I was totally obsessed with these models, and realized the value of that car. He probably sold it for 10 grand! It had been garage kept, had the euro headlights, and only 56,000 miles on it, plus it was bright, clear red. I had traded a truck for it originally, and all I thought at the time was, a smoky diesel, what am I going to do with this? I traded that beautiful car because I was in school, and since it was grey market, had to go through MB for every piece I wanted to put on it, which I could not afford.

So I traded it for a patched up deathtrap which almost lost a seat to the road between NYC and Providence. 20/20 hindsight. I have been trying to recover from that blunder ever since, and this new one is the first one that has no rust, and has the potential to be the car that I want. hopefully I get wiser as I get older