Restoration vice Repair...Much more time, money and guilt!
 

Hi, I am rebuilding my 85 300D, I have torn down to the stage where it looks like the body just came off the assembly line. New interior, new front end, new tires, new paint,major rust repair the list goes on and on
In REPAIR, the most you ever do is spend a week, and its not always on your mind and no matter what mistakes you make, or how many fingers you bruise, you go away smiling because you've saved yourself a ton of money, learned something new , and seen it done right. The car is your servant and your view is tunnel visioned to the repair only. you might spot rust or something else that doesnt work, but hey that doesnt keep your car from running...
In RESTORATION, the car is no longer a servant. Its your master! Every defect, no matter how small drives you crazy. Instead of being frugal, tons of money go flying out of your wallet and its kind of like having another family member. The guilt starts to build as time from your family disappears, money goes, and your focus wanders from work and family and you daydream about paintjobs and powder coat. You start looking for things you never cared about before like walnut panels and even OEM screws. You even start spending vacation days. "Oh my God," you despair, " as you wake up in the middle of night form a nightmare that the new interior you stored in the garage caught on fire,"I should be spending this time on my job or my daughter"
I kind of miss the days of simple repair.......

Im not a big fan of "restored" cars... Most of the ones I have seen the owners have gone "over the top" and made the car better than factory spec... Ill take a rust free well maintained car any day... In my opinion a well maintained car should never need restoration... Protecting your car against corrosion is something most owners don't think about...

But I totally understand where your coming from... My 300SD while looking great is not perfect... I planned on doing a pretty extensive restoration on the car but when I bought my 140 things changed a bit... The 140 is next to showroom new and the patina that the 126 has now just adds to its charm... I think I am going to leave well enough alone...

Keep in mind the Universe fights against perfection... My 140 got a nice mark on it the other day from where someone backed into the bumper in the parking deck at work... One of many marks of character the car will probably get on it in the next few years.... Im not sure if you just don't notice on an older car but the newer and nicer your car is the more likely it is to get damaged... I once owned a brand new car with less than 1000 miles on it and someone dropped a piece of plywood on the hood at the home improvement center... :(

There is no way you can turn back now. It feels rotten, doesn't it?

I've been working on-and-off since my freshman year at university (2002) on a 1965 VW 1200 that didn't need a restoration at all. It ran fine, looked fine, drove fine and basically just needed minor repairs ( I think they call it 'sorting' here) like window seals and a new set of door panels, a new fender and such, it did *not* need to be sandblasted to bare metal, it did *not* need to be dismantled completly.

To be honest, I feel worse about having ruined a nice example of an original automobile than I do about it being stalled at the moment whilever I finish my studies, or the money/time spent on it.

Overrestoration is a problem, cars are not works of art (damn-- I NEVER imagined I'd ever say that..) they are objects we use-- tools of transportation. We enthusiasts get so wrapped up in our love of motoring that we pour time, affection and money on these objects like they are suitors we are courting, whenever they're mere automobiles.

It may stem from a perfectionist tendency or that we are wrestling for control of something, I don't know. What I do know is that when you pay attention to things like seat rail colors matching steering column colors matching window winder knobs and shift knobs, that it isn't just fixing up a car anymore. Examine the positive/negative effects of your efforts and investment, not only for yourself, but for those around you as well-- you may find that you are obscessing about it and that you need to stand back, take a break and focus on other things more.

Having a shiny new old car (neither a w123 or a Type-1 VW is anything special in real car collecting) is never so important as we pretend it is.

Even this moment I am mulling abridging the project..
 

I'm thinking of just getting it back to rustfree, mechanically very safe and sound with AC.
No powder coated wheels and nice tires and no new paint job and thats it! What inspired me to do this ridculous extravaganza was when i say a mint condition 300D at the dealer for service back in May. My indy friend had a car with a nice blue leather interior to replace the infamous puke yellow mustard version I had and i stripped the whole thing door panels, headliner and all...

Yes you are right,Carrameow. I did a 65 Mustang Fastback with my son, its his. 2.5 years of complete focus. Nothing but the car 24 hours a day. I don't think I would do it again.

Dave

I love cars and I love the skills I developed & fixing something messed up..
 

But in this case, having read TWalgamuth's post about his car being rear ended, I can just imagine my setting myself up for a case of the Universe gets even--the day I finish it, somebody hits it, or similar. That happened with my 240D once.
I'mj ust going to make few more welds to patch the rust. No paint job or fancy wheels--I'll put a can of industrial paint remover on them and power wash them them to bare aluminum and thats it.....

I disagree certain cars are works of art. Take a look at a 250GTO and tell me you couldn't sit back with a glass of wine and just look at it.:D


Welcome to the club, restoration work on the SDL is entering year 3. I am hoping to have it done by year 4 or 5, yeah right. Maybe a few years from now I'll enter it into a car show and win a prize!:D


It gets easyer, I just spent $15 yesterday buying offical MB electrical tape from the dealer. Didn't even flinch!:D Its cloth covered, and is identical to the tape originally used. Small price to pay for original looking repairs.

There they go, crossing over to the dark side:devil: :grim: :greedy:

It's just money

At car shows it gets worse
 

At a car show in Palo Alto, some fellow was cleaning his Corvette's engine with a feather duster,

And at Pebble Beach, would clean the tire treads with toothbrushes to remove the bits of grass in the tire tread after the car was moved on the grass....

This behavior intimidates me, and a clean car is one thing, but this is too much.

to me a car is just a ride from point A to point B and back. It is a bonus if I enjoy the car, if it's comfortable, if it has nice style. It is required to run well at all times...that goes back to the A to B deal.

I will never be able to afford "classic cars" with classic car values, I don't have that kinda money and if I did, I would not spent it on an "investment type car". Most of these true classic autos never get driven, they just get looked at. I am content to look at someone else's classic and keep my 3 bucks in the bank!

Thousands on new paint? Never! Thousands for a new Kolar shotgun, cased, tubed, and custom fitted....yeah, I'd do that!! Whatever floats your boat, it's your bucks get the bang you want.

My question is this, Is a 1985 300D a real classic? Or does it just have real classic style?

I've been pondering quite a bit a bout this:
I would say W116, W124 and W126 and particularly W123 are not yet classics because they are just getting to the age of "classic" and most of them are still running like everyday cars, commuters. their durability and reliability has actually been counter productive in making them rare.
I sincerely hope that an oil scare this summer will upgrade them all to status of legend.

Mismost--
That was the point I was trying to make. The w123 is the cockroach of the Mercedes-Benz line. This likely won't change, even in 20 more years whenever cars of the late 70's and middle 80's are actually rare sights on the roads.

My recommendation would be to put the car together as cheaply(but well) as possible, drive the snot out of it and hope everyone else's gets wrecked so it is actually a notable car and not just one of a couple hundred thousand that are still on the road:P

Find a finnie, find a ponton... work on those in a restoration. Just repair the w123 and enjoy it. Save its full restoration for 2025, it'll be worth it then.

or maybe not.

tom w

Its never "worth it" financialy to restore a car. 9 1/2 times out of 10 you will lose money, sometimes a lot. A rare exception would be say if you found a 250GTO in a barn and picked it up for $100k or so. Cars like that you can make pretty good money restoring. To bad they were all yanked out of the barns 20 years ago.

So forget the money, it isn't about money.

People restore things because its fun. Becuase when you were in highschool you had a poster of XX on the wall, and now 30 years later you can afford to own such a car.

Its never worth it, I know people that probably have $1m into boats and will see a half that come time to sell if they are very lucky.


If you enjoy it, and can afford it restore it. Whatever makes you happy.

If you want to make money on cars it ain't going to happen with these.