I'm spending $4000 in paint/rust repairs on my W115. Am I crazy?

[bipolardave]

I bought my first Mercedes earlier this summer. It looked in great shape for an East Coast Benz and has records going back to the day it was bought in 1974.

However, the more I toyed with it the more problems I found.

For instance, what I thought would be a quick respray and replacing the rocker panels yielded a whole of lot of rust that was hidden beneath body filler and 40 year old undercoating. It's too late to turn back and what's rotten will be fixed. I'm stubbornly stupid like that.

The way I see it, if I like and enjoy the car then there's no reason to *not* continue throwing money at it. Even if I lose money on the sale years or decades down the road, I've at least done my part to preserve a small piece of history.

I still have some work to do after this (fuel lines, shocks, tires, and possible IP rebuild) so it's fair to say that I'll have to spend $8-9K on top of what I paid for the car.

Am I the only financially foolish one here? Would anyone else continue throwing good money after bad to the point where they could have found a mint condition car for what it cost to restore their run down one? Surely $10k would have yielded a nice So Cal 220D with more charm than my 240D, no?