Two weeks ago I had my E300 towed to the dealership. The next day when I went to pick it up I had my father go with me. I had him drive the E300 home and I drove my 1985 300D. The drive home is all of an hour. When we return to my home my father make no comment on driving the E300. It was his first time driving a Mercedes and he was afraid to drive it.

Last night I needed to pick up my S-10 at the shop. (The problem turned out to be the electric EGR valve.) Again my father went with me. I drove the S-10 and he drove the 1985 300D. The fifteen minute drive home includes a stretch of road that is rolling and with sharp turns. When we arrived home my father got out of the car and exclaimed, “That is a nice driving car.”

Current Family Scoring of Mercedes:
1999 E300 – 1 point (wife)
1985 300D – 2 points (my father and me)
1981 300D – 2 points (my wife and me)….now why my wife likes this one, but not the 1985 is beyond me.

Totals:
W210 – 1 point
W123 – 4 points

Around 1994 my father was looking at purchasing a 190E 2.6 that was leased by a friend of his and the lease was at the end. My father has never been a man of means to purchase a new Mercedes and I know that he would be concerned about what sort of impression others would have of him, but I believe that he has been frequently interested in a small Mercedes sedan or wagon. Well that 190E never happened….I don’t think my mother would stand for it. I wonder after last night if the bug bit my father, again. My father has had several Olds Cutlass wagons and his current one is about 190K miles. I think that a C-Class wagon would be a good fit for him. If so I would hope that my mother is a little ‘primed’ since her one and only son who lives a tenth of a mile away has three parked at the house.

The joke for us is that we live in a very rural area of Ohio that tends to be very 'BIG THREE' due to the GM plant and four of the Mercedes in our township are with two miles of each other……the fourth (and oldest) is a 1976 SL that is owned by an uncle of my father who is a retired Navy sub captain and is now a car collector. He bought this beautiful red SL new when he retired in 1976. It is hardly ever driven and I doubt that the car has 8K miles. This would be a nice car for my father, too.