Absolutely gorgeous car! However are you sure that the color is 504 English Red? Whenever I have seen that color listed the car was a bright orange.

(My friends car for reference and it is also below in my signature)
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1982 300GD Carmine Red (DB3535) Cabriolet Parting Out
1990 300SEL Smoke Silver (Parting out)
1991 350SDL Blackberry Metallic (481)

"The thing is Bob, its not that I'm lazy...its that I just don't care."

The car in person is definitely orange looking, and I think the images I posted make it seem like more of an actual "red" (which it isn't)

However, I have discovered that Mercedes only produced English Red until 1982. And this car is an '84. But they did produce W123s in "Altrot" which is a very similar color. I'm not quite sure the differences between the two but from what it looks like online, English Red is more of a vibrant orange. Altrot is also very orange looking. We had a bit of a discussion on Benzworld about it. I won't be home until December so I can't check the paint code in person just yet.


You can see the wagon that was posted in this thread looks orange and it is Altrot. And mine looks very similar in certain lighting:
Mercedes-Benz Forum

Amazing find, and beautiful car!!!

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1983 W123 300TD US spec Turbo engine, with Euro bumpers and manual climate control, and manual transmission.

I know you're not going to drive her daily, but I drove ours 8,000 miles the first year and was entertained every moment. I even drove the car to Wrightwood and Palm Springs, albeit slowly but I drove it. Unfortunately I didn't get the service records with the car, the seller died (he owned a dealership) so his family sold it out of his personal collection and couldn't locate the file. Everything on the car is MBZ right down to the half shafts. Sadly someone put a pull out stereo (cir. 1981) in the car so the Becker is long gone. The only thing that doesn't work is the Cruise, even the Hirschman antenna works! All it needed after it sat in living collection for years was a trunk lock actuator and a $6 rubber bushing in the throttle linkage.

The bad thing I did was buy it for my teenage daughters to learn to drive in, once the oldest turned 16 I had to surrender the keys. So now it sits outside and I'm sure this car never sat outside, but I wipe it off every morning for her. Now there's a tiny crack beginning in the middle of the dash and Damn if that original single stage paint isn't a nightmare to keep from oxidizing. We are 12,000+ miles on the old car now, my older daughter drives it daily. It cracks me up listening to it rattle on down the street leaving a little poof of soot behind.

I think ours has less options than yours, our right hand mirror is manual and there's no sunroof! LOL

Here's a couple of pics from when I took delivery. I should have taken a pic inside the warehouse with it sitting next to the Ferraris, Porsches, Husqavarnas, a Fiat Jolly and some other exotic iron. The family needed to make room so I got the crappiest car in the collection.

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1981 240D Four on the floor, Orient Red over Parchment, bought with 154,000 but it's a daily driver and up to 180,000 miles, mostly original paint and all original interior.

What a nice car you have as well, and it will undoubtedly keep your daughter safe. Only thing is, I would hate to see her not take care of such a beautiful car (most teenagers wouldn't) But I'm glad that you still watch over it, and I would do the same.

With single stage paint, you really have to condition it. It is almost like leather in my opinion, and you must feed it oil from time to time. It shouldn't oxidize if you correctly nurture it. I'm going to do the same with my car as soon as I get home.

What a cool car though, and they are getting harder to find in these cared for conditions. I'm sure they will go up in value sooner or later if we maintain them cosmetically and mechanically.

Beautiful story, and it sounds like you are a really lucky man. I'm sure you spent a decent amount on it. I have a feeling these cars will go up in value in the near future. Enjoy the car.

That is a beautiful car, great color combo! I love the cream interior, so much nicer than the palamino that always seems to turn pink.

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1983 W123 300TD US spec Turbo engine, with Euro bumpers and manual climate control, and manual transmission.

I like the Palomino in my 240D. It's easier to find matching interior bits in salvage yards. Plus, mines not pink (yet)
My Euro 300TD has a Burgundy interior. Good luck finding matching for that!

Happy Motoring, Mark

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DrDKW

Parts for the cream interior are not plentiful to say the least, I tried to get a spare Orient Red hub cap no luck so far on that either.

Daughter number one is babying the car, I have high hopes for daughter number two next year.

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1981 240D Four on the floor, Orient Red over Parchment, bought with 154,000 but it's a daily driver and up to 180,000 miles, mostly original paint and all original interior.

It's been well over a year since I've posted in this thread but I figured I would give you all a quick update on the car. I ended up driving the car just the way I bought it for a few months before deciding to give it a substantial overhaul.

The engine bay was filthy when I got the car, and probably had never been cleaned much:



Also, the previous owner had some sort of sound deadening material against the firewall which really bothered me, being the purist that I am. In August of last year, I removed the engine and transmission for maintenance reasons:



That also gave me the chance to remove the ugly sound deadening material from the firewall as well as a complete 40+ hour engine bay detail. I also installed a new hood pad:




That sort of brings us to now, and I'm currently waiting on a few more things before putting the engine and transmission back in. Every single part that I took off the engine/transmission I've polished and cleaned including every nut bolt or screw.

With that being said I'm getting ready to paint the engine block and once it's painted, I'm going to replace the rear main seal and the front crank too. After that, it is time to reassemble things.

I've got the engine on a stand, pretty stripped at the moment. But I did give it a full detail and although it is super clean, the paint is a bit too faded for my liking. So I will leave everything original other than the block's paint.






Here are just some of the parts I've taken off the car, I've also got many other boxes full of bolts and other various parts though they are all ready to go. I haven't replated any of the parts for the record and I don't plan to at the moment.



One other major thing I forgot to mention is that I removed the entire interior to detail. I spent many many hours on that process and although the interior was quite clean when I originally bought the car, it had the potential to look factory new. Being an obsessive kind of person, I figured I might as well go for it. Here are a few pictures after stripping the interior. Notice I also polished and waxed all of the interior paint, don't ask me why...






I also found a coin from Germany in the back seat from 1981 which is funny because I didn't find ANY US coins in the entire car and it has been in California for the last 33 years. The car was only in Germany from 84'-85' + time spent in production.





I, unfortunately, don't have any good pictures of the interior after I finished all of that detailing I mentioned. The car is buried in the garage at the moment and there is no way to get a good picture of the interior but did manage to get a quick picture for the sake of this update.







Instead of making new threads, I'm going to keep updating here. Anyways, that is all I have, for now, thanks for reading.

- Sonny

Impressive indeed. Looks like new! Good job.

Doesn't the hood go straight up 90 deg on those? take a look at the hinges. Might help when you stuff the engine back in.

We all want to know that

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Revenge is a meal best served cold

1980 300SD, Shotzie
1996 Volvo 850, Dark Night
1997 Ford F350 7.3, The Tuna Clipper

Thank you!

Yeah I am well aware of that and in this picture:



We pulled the engine straight up vertically with the hood at 90 degrees. Then we rolled the car into the garage a little bit and shut the hood slightly as to not hit the garage door. (The car was directly underneath the engine with the hood open at 90 degrees before we rolled it back)



Not sure what you mean, what do you want to know?

looks very nice! Lovely euro only color....right?

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[SIGPIC] Diesel loving autocrossing grandpa Architect. 08 Dodge 3/4 ton with Cummins & six speed; I have had about 35 benzes. I have a 39 Studebaker Coupe Express pickup in which I have had installed a 617 turbo and a five speed manual.[SIGPIC]

..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.