Our ol 220D's past is dug up again

[JordaanDMC-12]

So we've had our old 1970 220D for about 5 years now, and back when we first got it, I decided to call up the son of the original owner whose number was on an old Craigslist ad the family had posted to sell the car, and tell him the car was in good hands and that we'd take good care of it.. I was EXTREMELY nervous about calling because I didn't want to freak the guy out or anything but when I finally called he seemed very appreciative and told me it was "his dads baby" and he thanked me for the call.

However 5 years later, after looking over old records again and again and seeing the name over and over again, I really wanted to put a face to the name, especially because we've made a binder full of its records, service receipts ect... but I'd love to put a picture of the original owner in there as well.

So I mustered up the courage, once again to call the son who's phone number thankfully hasn't changed to ask him if he'd be okay with that. I called him up and said how we've taken care of the car, taken it to Mercedes meets, car shows blah blah blah and then I asked about the picture of his dad, he was cool about it, but I guess he took it as I wanted to go pick up an actual picture of his dad (I was thinking he could email me one or something) and said he was not in California anymore to get the picture to me, I didn't want to push it, so I accepted the answer, but I wanted to get some information I have just always wondered about.

I asked him if his dad ever took it on trips, and if he knew why he put the car in storage for 17-18 years. Now, his dad lived in Mecca, California back when he got this car.. Mecca is literally out in the middle of nowhere in the Californian desert.. there is nothing there now, I can't imagine back in 1970.. The car was in pristine condition when we got it 5 years ago so I assumed he never drove the car hardly out of Mecca and only occasionally just to get services done. WELL... to my surprise it was quite the contrary.

He said his dad took it on trips all the time, he had family in Oklahoma so he would drive it from CA to OK 2-3 times a year! He also took it to Sonora, Mexico and said "he'd go on the roads only trucks used" (rural roads) He finally stored her though because of an oil leak, and he didn't want to run it on low oil, so he stored it in his barn where it stayed for 18 years, meanwhile he bought a dodge diesel truck. This little amount of info was so very interesting to me, I would have NEVER thought this car did those things, and here I was also thinking it only had like 160,000 miles on it... pffft this thing must be uppppp there in mileage! Just goes to show you just never know.. I look at the 220 now and just imagine what it saw.. if only she could talk!

He told me he was really glad the car went to someone like me because he knew I appreciated what I had, I thanked him again and we hung up. I didn't get a picture but I feel like he was cool enough that if I ever drove through Oregon (where he's at now) and called him up asking if he wanted to see the car, he would and he would show me some pictures of his dad.. I'll definitely take what I got though, some answers to questions I've wondered about since the first time I laid eyes on this car! Thought this was pretty cool and that I'd share this with y'all

[Pooka]

Iv'e owned some pretty weird cars over the years and sometimes hear from the current owners. I don't blame them for wanting the info since some of these cars were 'different' and they wanted to know what type of person was the past or original owner.