Well, I had another one of those great drives on the way home from the shop today. I wasn't in a Benz, but had decided to drive my BMW 745i Turbo, good timimg on my part once you hear this story

Was heading south on I-71 today when I spotted two cars having at it, a Ford Ranger (ooh scary) loaded to the gills with bimbos and a Dodge Neon R/T right behind it full of teenage punks. They were doing around 95-100mph when I came soaring by at around 125 or so. A little ways up the road, I got hung up in traffic which meant that the two "racers" had snuck by me. After the congestion cleared up, I got back in their game and slid inbetween the Neon and the Ranger (who was in the lead) and hung on to their bumper for a while. Once traffic completely dissipated, I moved over into the right lane, dropped the tranny into sport mode, and mashed the go pedal through the floor. I quickly remembered why I bought this car to replace my 6.9, as I rocketed from 100mph to 130 in no time flat. Needless to say, those two parties were not heard from again until I decided to let them catch up and toast them once more. I slowed down and let the Ranger get along side of me, stuck my hand out the sunroof, waved bye, flipped them the bird and blew off like a shot. When I glanced down at my speedo, I was rounding the 143mph mark and still climbing!! Yeesh! And the Bimmer was still calm and collected at these velocities (we must take into account here that the 745i was only sold in Germany new and was built especially for Autobahn driving). Anyhow, as I got off at my exit, I got hung up at a traffic light a little ways down the road. The Ranger finally caught up with me, and the driver rolled down her window and replied "I'll trade cars with ya! That was awesome!". My reply (sorry, I was feeling a little cocky) to that was "yeah, do that again and I'll kick your ass again". Hehe, God I love German cars! And with that, I sped off and left them to ponder in a cloud of Michelin TRX dust and hopefully had embedded the 745i badge in their minds forever. Now they'll know better for next time

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Rgds,
Aaron Greenberg
MB technician
Precision Motorcars, Cincinnati, Ohio
'67 250SE Cabriolet
'77 450SL
'80 300SD
'85 380SE
'86 420SEL
'89 420SEL
'93 300E 2.8
'74 Jensen Interceptor Mk.III
'81 DeLorean DMC12
'84 BMW 745i Turbo

Aaron,
Picking on Rangers and Neons in a 745... Though they most certainly deserved it, its akin to feeding a pair of goldfish to a piranha. Most people just don't believe that a "family car" can do what the german sports sedans are capable of.

Good story...Lee

PS Doesn't the 745 just overwhelm those TRX's?

Lee,

Hehe, I got burned on the BMW board about going that fast on a set of TRXs, but I mentioned to them that they are freshly shod and I balanced them using our cool new ($12,000) Hunter balancer with force variation, etc...But even for new tires, I suppose that they were pretty overwhelmed! Most people with 745i's, 635s, etc..tend to scrap the TRX wheels and tires, but I'm a freak for originality and personally like the TRX rims. They seem to go with the look of the car. The only other wheel I'd consider putting on that car would be the O-Z Mito Modular 5-star but at around $400 a pop, I'll stick with factory. Besides, who else would go to the trouble of disassembling most of the dash/interior to get their (pretty much) useless on board computer functioning? Well, since I did that, I thought I'd keep with original and go for the TRX again.


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Rgds,
Aaron Greenberg
MB technician
Precision Motorcars, Cincinnati, Ohio
'67 250SE Cabriolet
'77 450SL
'80 300SD
'85 380SE
'86 420SEL
'89 420SEL
'93 300E 2.8
'74 Jensen Interceptor Mk.III
'81 DeLorean DMC12
'84 BMW 745i Turbo

AAron,
Your keeping to originality retaining the TRX wheels reminds me of the many 635's and 400i Ferraris that had the 390 and 415 wheels. Don't remember the process but there is enough meat to remachine the wheels to make use of 'normal' tires. Never did it but had heard of it. Just a thought if you have an extra/curbed wheel laying around to experiment with.

TobiasMB
300SE, 300CE, C280Sport, 190/5.0

Tobias,

Hmmm.....I'll look into that!

I definitely know there's major room for improvement over the TRXs so when my "new" set is junk, I might just have to shave 'em a little!!

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Rgds,
Aaron Greenberg
MB technician
Precision Motorcars, Cincinnati, Ohio
'67 250SE Cabriolet
'77 450SL
'80 300SD
'85 380SE
'86 420SEL
'89 420SEL
'93 300E 2.8
'74 Jensen Interceptor Mk.III
'81 DeLorean DMC12
'84 BMW 745i Turbo