I saw the post titled"Whats the history of your diesel Benz?" and was about to post then i realized it was a diesel thread. so i thought we should do a Whats the history of your gasoline Benz?"
my 230TE was originallypurchased in germany by a weathy family here in san diego, the wife in the family was set againsed getting a diesel, said it was too smelly and noisy. so in 1985 there were no gas wagons in the US. they wanted a wagon since they had several young children, they went to germany and settled on a 1985 230TE. they had the car brought over and modified it to dot requirements.
they owned it for 10 years and took very good care of it the entire time they owned it. in 1995 they sold it to the shop where i work, we painted it to look like a mercedes service wagon, we used it for many years as a customer shuttle and parts retreival wagon. last year the shop decided to buy an ML320 for our shuttle. the owner was goung to scrap the car, he didn't want the headache of the emission problems every 2 years. i bought it for $500, i have had it repainted, and restored it to its pre european glory. the car has 275,000 miles and runs beautifully