I've promised a "Diseasel" thread in the LTB forum for nearly a year, and here it is finally! Laziness and a lack of time don't contribute to timely postings, especially long-winded ones.

The back story on the car starts in 2007 when I decided I wanted Mercedes diesel in my life. I grew up in the 90s in Corpus Christi, and they were EVERYWHERE! Still are actually... I remember the sight, the smell, the sound, and I decided I needed my own.

I'm the type of person who likes to find old cast-offs that nobody gives a second look, fix them up, and keep them as my own. I decided my Mercedes needed to fit this requirement as well, so I set up some criteria:

- Needed to be a W123 or W126 with a Turbo, preferably a 617 since they were easier to find.
- Needed to be mostly complete, and without major body damage or signs of wreckage
- Needed a clear title (Title in Hand) from the seller
- Total budget for purchase price (including taxes and title fees) needed to be $1K or less

Not an easy task. The impossibly low budget ruled out anything "nice" and seemed to set me up with some of the flakiest sellers of vehicles I've ever run across.

I set aside $1000 in January 2007 for the car. Over the ensuing years, I must have looked at over 150 cars in the area, from San Antonio to Austin to San Angelo, even one up in Abilene. Nothing ever came through, the sellers were flaky, the cars had serious problems, price was too high and seller wouldn't budge, engine had major malfunctions, body damage, etc.

Flash forward to January 2016. I had an appointment lined up to see an '83 300SD in San Antonio, and the seller flaked out as usual. No response, not answering calls, texts, etc. Ad posting still showing. *Sigh* I decide to search the usual places one last time, and come across an ad I'd skipped for an '86 300SDL. Called the seller and left a voicemail, fully expecting to never hear from them again. Lo and behold, I get a call, the car is available, and the seller screens ME to find out if I had any idea what the car was (this was new to me). We hit it off and I go down to see the car.

Before I agreed to see it, I got the whole rundown and back story on the thing. It had been traded into a used car lot in 2006 (registration tags expired March 2007) and the owner was a fan of MB diesels. He had intended to restore the car for his own vehicle, but never happened. The car sat in the lot's inventory, but in a back field for years until they decided to sell it off (enter the CL ad). The car ran - poorly, but was otherwise complete. The paint was rough from sitting in the Texas sun for 10 years, and the interior is a bit crispy, but overall, it seemed like a decent starting point. Seller agreed to a fair price and the total cash outlaid came out just below my $1K budget.

The interesting part about the car is that since it had never been transferred out of the car lot's inventory, it had never been re-titled. Only 1 owner had it before me, so I'm technically (and legally) the 2nd owner.

The interesting part being that the car was parked just about the time I started looking...like it was waiting for me to find it. Freaky...

__________________
Current stable:
1995 E320 149K (Nancy)
1983 500SL 120K (SLoL)

Black Sheep:
1985 524TD 167K (TotalDumpster™)

Gone but not forgotten:
1986 300SDL (RIP)
1991 350SD
1991 560SEL
1990 560SEL
1986 500SEL Euro (Rusted to nothing at 47K!)