Well I would prefer that my first post be a more positive introduction, but as they say, s*tuff happens.
I spent about a year searching for the finest example of a 1987 300TD, as I wanted what I considered the perfect vehicle that I could maintain over the long haul into the future. I’ve got diesel experience with my ’93 300D as well as a VW Vanagon Syncro that I converted to TDI power a while back. I knew that the ’87 300TD was what I wanted for a long term car.
In late summer I found one that had been on and off of ebay for several months always at a high reserve. It had just over 100k miles and had been kept garaged during its life which had been spent in Texas. The color combination was unusual, a brown exterior with a brown cloth velour interior. Some would say yuck, but I thought it was beautiful. It had been a European purchase program car, so the options were rather unusual. The bidding fell within my price range and I took the plunge. Made the purchase and had the car shipped to my home in Raleigh NC. Car was just about as nice as I expected, just needed some servicing and steering linkage work. So pulled it right into the garage and put her up on jackstands and went from bumper to bumper and serviced everything and replaced the steering linkage. As the car hadn’t been driven much over the last decade, the tires had date codes from the mid-90’s so I drove over to Discount Tire for a new set of rubber. When the tech brought the car out, he commented on what a nice car it was and said it was beautiful. I left with a smile knowing that he was right.
Two days later, I met up with a friend at a local café to show him the car. The weather was nice that day so we sat outside of the café and the 300TD was parked right out front on the boulevard. As we were sitting there discussing why I was so enamored with that particular model Benz, a Hyundai Sonata came barreling down the boulevard with an inattentive driver at 45 mph and ran right into the line of parked cars.
There was one vehicle behind my car and a few more in front of mine. As we sat there, we watched my car get absolutely squished . Totalled. I didn’t hear any skid or anything, just BAM – the guy slammed square into the row of cars at full speed. Of course, everyone ran to help the driver, who walked away, but I sat there with my jaw dropped. It felt like a slow motion movie as I watched my car get destroyed! I’m glad the young guy didn’t get hurt, but I sure wish he hadn’t been looking down at his phone.
So I’ve had a quick lesson in impermanence. Here today gone tomorrow. How quickly things can happen outside of your control. I’m still struggling with the disappointment, but am glad nobody got physically hurt.
I’m thinking of keeping the drivetrain as it is in such good condition. Such low mileage and not a single oil leak. The engine looks like new. I’d love to transfer the parts over to another car, but with limited garage space and a hard-assed neighborhood association, I may just have to let it go.
So here is a head’s up that a part-out might get posted soon on the classified forum!
Bill Knight
Raleigh NC