John,

I'm not sure, but I think I may have been the one that initiated the 55 post thread.

I spent about six weeks in Europe, most of it in Germany this summer, and got very envious of all the manual transmission MB's that were everywhere. I was looking into bringing one back so that I could have an updated manual transmission Benz.

I found someone that would bring it back and get it certified for me. I don't know if his methods were legal, but he claimed he could do it. It never got to this because the C240 was announced with a manual transmission, so I bought one completely legal and on the up and up.

In the course of looking into this, I lost interest because of the fact that the cars are driven so hard and fast on the Autobahns that the engines are pretty ragged out in short order. Maybe this is one of the reasons that they last so long here where we have speed limits.

I just read an article in the latest Star magazine that I received this past week about engine rebuilding. They confirmed my suspicions about the ragged out engines from the Autobahn.

I drove several thousand kilometers on the Autobahn this summer and can assure you that if I lived there, I would be running out my engine just like the Germans do. Driving on the Autobahn is the most fun that I can have with my clothes on.

I think your search for a US car instead, is the right approach. Precisely what Benz are you looking for?

Good luck,

------------------
Larry Bible
'01 C Class, Six Speed
'84 Euro 240D, manual, 533K miles
'88 300E 5 Speed
'81 300D Daughter's Car
Over 800,000 miles in
Mercedes automobiles