how much would one of you diesel nuts out there pay for a brand new 85 300SD that had been left on a shipping truck somewhere and forgotten about. I know it would never actually happen, but imagine the engine had never been started, and the car had sat inside a wooden crate in a wharehouse for the past 17 years, and the paint, engine, tranny, leather, dash etc were all absolutely perfect. how much would you offer to pay for the car?
crazy question i know, but i'm just curious, my mind is doing strange things to me tonight......
Ryan

__________________
83 300SD.......sold
96 integra SE....sold
99 a4 quattro....sold
2001 IS300.......sold
2002 330i.........current.
2004 highlander limited....current.

Ryan, you have too much time on your hands and not enough mechanicing to do.... it would be hard for the leather to be in good shape because it needs to have oils reintroduced on a regular basis.... and if it were hermetically sealed in Funk and Wagnalls front yead next to the front porch then the leather would probably have mildewed...There are also other parts of a car which actually last longer when used and serviced... but if you had one like you described I would pay $3000 for it because when it does start to fall apart there are not going to be any parts cars to canabalize...

A car that age that's been untouched?

If nothing else, just about all the rubber would be completely dried up from lack-of-use. I would guess that every seal in the engine would have to be replaced, as well as the tranny and rear end seals.

I've been working on a truck that sat for 5 years, and have been having problems left and right with rubber and plastic pieces being brittle and breaking. Even a piece of plastic in the injector pump is now coming apart, meaning I have to change the pump to the tune of $300.

Between experience with other vehicles and what I've read here, I'd be wary of any M-B diesel from that genre with fewer than 100,000 miles on the odo...

Just my $.02. Sometimes higher-mileage engines are better...one reason I love diesels so much.

__________________
2001 VW Jetta TDI, 5 speed, daily driver
1991 Ford F-350, work in progress
1984 Ford F-250 4x4, 6.9l turbo diesel, 5 speed manual
Previous oilburners: 1980 IH Scout, 1984 E-350, 1985 M-B 300D, 1979 M-B 300SD, 1983 M-B 300D
Spark-free since 1999

The car might *look* really nice, but would actually require thousands of dollars to be roadworthy. Tires, everything rubber, seals, and HOPEFULLY the engine and tranny are still OK from sitting so long and not moved (never being started!).

But if this car was actually brand new and had no problems, $10,000 isn't out of the question for me (If I could scrape together enough dough).

No diesel could go fast enough to get stuck in a time warp. Now a 500E

There is a man in my town that bought a new 1996 SL320 roadster on special order, had it trucked to his house. He backed it into a portable steel building and locked it up. I don't know how long he plans to hold it, but I really can't see it gaining value. That eighty grand would probably been better invested elsewhere.

Bill, your not fooling those of us who know you...your the tightest MB shopper in the world... you would not go to 30k on this car because you would compute that as 10 3k cars... or 15 2k cars.. and your eyes would just roll back inside your head when you considered having all that money tied up in just ONE car.... You know I am telling the truth.. Greg

Okay, this is my kind of question. There are people who would pay large sums of money for this car, me included. Anyone who says "yeah, but she needs work to make it roadworthy" is totally missing the point. This is not a car to drive. It is an object to look at, like a trophy, knowing this is the only one in the world that has no use. Sure the motor was started, when it was bench tested, but mostly, its new. I would guess some rich guy would want it for a collection. I know I would. Here's a link though, enjoy it... You may be surprised at this story...

http://57and58plymouth.homestead.com/VV_User_013.html

Actually, there is another story about a car like the above that was never sold when new, forgotten about, then sold brand new to a customer in 1978. Interesting... I know some dealers have a W123 sedan, wagon and coupe in matching colors stored away somewhere. We shall see when its 2020 I guess...

Well I have the original window sticker for my 1985 300SD. It was $40,845 dollars in 1985. Now if I was really good at math, I could extrapolate what that is in 2002 dollars given the rate of inflation for the last 17 years and the depreciation of the car and so forth.......

__________________
Orland Park, IL
1985 300SD 215,000 miles

One nice thing about having computers connected to the internet is that I no longer have to be good in math

Here's a site I found that has an inflation calculator
http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl
The above doesn't go over $10 K but it's easy to truncate a few zero's.
My 84 SD at $37K in 1984 would cost $63672.80 in 2002
The 1985 SD at $40,845 in 1985 would cost $67873 in 2002.
It also goes backwards. A gallon of gas at $1.29 a gallon today is worth $0.32 in 1973 dollars.

http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/bu2/inflateCPI.html
This doesn't go past 1999.

I'd look for more, but it's late...

__________________
Bob Roe
Lehigh Valley PA USA
1973 Olds 88, 1972 MB 280SE, 1978 Datsun 280Z, 1971 Ford T-Bird, 1972 Olds 88, 1983 Nissan Sentra, 1985 Sentra, 1973 230.6, 1990 Acura Integra, 1991 Volvo 940GLE wagon, 1983 300SD, 1984 300SD, 1995 Subaru Legacy L wagon, 2002 Mountaineer, 1991 300TE wagon, 2008 Murano, 2007 R320CDI 4Matic 52K, some Hyundai, 2008 BMW 535xi wagon, all gone... currently
2007 Honda Odyssey Touring, 2014 E350 4matic