My first car I got for my 17th birthday...A beautiful W123 '85 300D turbodiesel 190K miles. Anthracite/palomino...perfect chrome, no rust, dings, or scratches..And the gloss was like a mirror. Wheels were original with MXV's all round.

My first car,....I won't forget. Mainly because my dad sold it when it came in for its first oil-change and the current owner destroyed it with constant neglect.:mad:

I loved that car, but I always ALWAYS wanted an S-Class Benz...I got an '84 300SD for a replacement...Although the '84 had 100K more miles on it, I could've cared less as it was an S-Class diesel.:p Can never go back now.

i had my first at 17. a beat up old 82'300sd, after that i got my grandpas 85' 300d beauty which my g/f now owns. and i am 20 now and i own a 87' 300d w124. so i have had only diesel mercedes since i started driving.
vroom vroom its the fastest one so far =).

60! It just took me a long time to realize that what I really wanted was a car that was designed so that an owner could easily maintain it... and that such maintenance would actually pay off in high odometer miles.

It makes no sense to toil away on cars that were designed to fall apart in spite of our best efforts.

27 when I got my first one. Was saving up for a Porsche and ran across a 1959 190b. Went to look at it at nighttime and purchased it on the spot. (Well, we all have to learn our lessons.) Am on my fifth Mercedes now and never did get a Porsche.

18 or 19, a 1963 300SE with no brakes and down on its air suspension. $300, towed it home, and learned a lot, kept it 2-3 years, sold it for my cost (car and parts). Have had them ever since.

34, just 3 days ago : )

49+ and love the little girl.

Wife's Jetta may get 51 mpg at 70 mph and have a 126 mph top end (by GPS, odo read 129 ), but it don't turn the heads like the Benz and I find the Benz more comfortable for my 6'5" 300 lb body.:D

I was 16 when I bought my 190E. I saved up for two years for my "first car". I raised 4000, my folks through in 2500, and I was rolling in a bling bling 92 190E 2.6.

I then aquired the 220D a couple years later, to replace the 190. The 220D quickly dropped a prechamber onto the #1 cylinder. That car was donated to charity and I sold the 190E to another kid as his first car.

After riding the bus for awhile, I purchased my 82 300DT earlier this month.

Yes, I will always own benzes. However, I can't see myself in a new one. Perhaps my love of Mercedes will end when my patience for driving old cars fades...

One day I would like to own a restored 6.9.

How many More????
 

48! But I only had four cars before that. 1971 International Scout II, 1978 Plymouth Horizon (2 years too long), 1984 Ford F150 and the olds.

keep 'em comin!

My dad, who is going to be 70 years old this year, has always wanted to own a Mercedes but still hasn't gotten around to buying one. I beat him to owning a Mercedes a little over a year ago.

Mom bought a used MB 300d from someone and I responded "what are you crazy. With all that mileage you'll be dumping money into it".

Well, I got it a few years later, reluctantly.

Now I'm on my second and I think it's the greatest car made.

Dwayne

I forgot to provide my age, 37 in the last post.

Was 25 when I bought the '61 190Db. Had looked at new 190D's or possibly 200D's during last year in grad school, but they were way too much. By the time we bought the '68 in Dec 1970, had become thoroughly indoctrinated to reading all German manuals etc. and was almost dissapointed that would no longer be necessary. Ha Ha.... Drove the 220D/8 for twenty years, even added a second tank in forward end of trunk for the oil crisis years. What great times, diesel 32.9c/gal......

First Mercedes (1971 280SE 6cyl) at 60, first diesel (123 85300TD)at 65.

I just turned 29 and bought my first Benz last Sunday. It is a beautiful metallic charcoal (Anthracite?) over black MB-Tex interior. 1985 300D Turbo. The car really has character. . .I really haven't driven something quite like this. WUNDERBAR!

I am looking forward to driveing her for a long time to come.

16.. I inherited my moms C280, drove it for a year, put in 50K miles!
Then I bought my first w123 Diesel at 17.. a 1984 300DT. Beautiful car, put another 50K on in a year. Sold it with a desire for one in a different color and not willing to put the $$ it needed into it.
SO i used that cash and bought an 85 300DT. Midnight Blue. Amazing condition. Then my friend totalled it after I had had it for about 2 months. I scoured the newpapers and internet for the hopefully final and most beautiful 300DT.
Found the current Orient Red one I drive in San Diego. I'll never forget leaving the airport terminal and seeing the car waiting for me. 1 owner, all records, 145K miles. Looked as though it was put in the garage and never driven. Since then (june 03) ive put about 27K miles on it, and was backed into by a neighbor.
Ive brought the car up to perfect mechanical condition, and the next step once the money is all saved up will be to repair the bodywork (not that it needs it, but maybe even a complete respray for the hell of it.. which probabaly wont be for a while.. im not cutting corners, and as im sure everybody knows paint jobs are $$$$$ for quality ones), repaint the wheels or buy chrome ones, and drive it for the rest of my life. This one is not going away!

Long time ago
 

My first Benz was the 280 SE 3.5, Diamond Blue with Blue velour interior.

I was stationed at Rhein Main AB Germany and financed it through my Credit Union back in Livonia Michigan.

Set history, first car they had every financed that was not in the country and first one they financed without holding the lein (how would they have collected anyways).

I was 21, it was 1982 and the car was a babe magnet.

My first I still have, a 1985 300d in great shape. I've had it for almost three years and put 60k miles on it and it's performed perfectly. I love it so much that I figured I'd buy another and fix it up for my primary car and sell my huge, gas guzzling truck. I was 29 when I got this first Benz, now I'm 32. I will own a Benz until I die.

I was 32...1994 E320, great car.

Well I believe I registered here in August 2002, so that would make me 20 when I bought my first MB. I got fed up with my 1991 Grand Prix, money pit, so I wanted to try a diesel. I won the auction on eBay and picked it up a few days later in north carolina.

Anyway anybody see the new MB commercial? I forget the wording right now but it was something like anybody can be good to their car, but when your car is good to you then you will become a faithful customer to that company. This is kind of a joke on their new cars but they showed an old 300D (early 70s) with the grille just full of mileage badges, makes me want to go buy another MB. W123? W126? :D

I was 14. A 56 180D I think it was. Should have kept it as it was a great car. Since been replaced with a 58 220S (gasser). Now have 2 300 diesels.

I was 19 and purchased an '84 190D with 60k. Now at 34, I still have it, still drive it (along with a 123 and a 126) and it is 2 months away from 400k. Still runs like a champ (original engine with no real work).

33, although I came home from the hospital in the back of a '58 180 Ponton....

I started wrenching on Mercedes when my dad brought home a red 58 190SL when I was about 11. I fell in love w/ that car working on it w/him and have never forgiven him for trading it for a 123 diesel wagon (and I would be much more sucessful now if I had driven that car to highschool and been that cool). At 13 I bought a busted-a** 68 Mustang (bullet proof straight 6..was very good to me)(sold almost two yrs ago now...I miss it) and at 15 I bought a (my first) '79 123 d-wagon ("beast"). Funny story about that car...I gave it to my sister @ about 200k mi and she drove it for a few years until the tranny dropped reverse and we sold it for about $1500. Two or three years after that I was looking for another diesel wagon and driving through another state, about 400 miles from home, and stopped at a MB indy dealer and saw a nice looking d-wagon. I sat in it and had one of those crazy deja-vu experiences, my head literally spinning because it smelled just my old wagon. I got out and looked at the rear...there was the bumper sticker that I had put on it nearly 6yrs earlier; it was MY car!! They had painted it a slightly lighter blue, fixed reverse, and only put about 3k mi on it....and were asking what I sold it for. Being the bastard that I am I talked the guy down to $1000 and drove her home. After several more blissful yrs (well...except for the time that, when cleaning under the rugs, I found that the only thing holding the drivers seat in was the rubber undercoating....) I sold her for nearly three times what I paid for her, to a guy starting a biodiesel company w/ just over 325k mi on her. I love that car... wow that turned into a rambling story...lol... :D
-Matt-

I was 22 and bought a '59 220S "ponton" with a bad engine for $450. I was newly-married and it was our only car, so I disassembled the engine on my garage floor, had an aerospace company in Santa Barbara heliarc the head and plane it flat (they did it for free!!) and I bought a new set of pistons. Total cost for the repair was another $450, so for $900 I had a car that was like new. I wish I still had it!! If anybody out there has an ivory colored '59 220S with unique plumbing for the twin solexes (they were from a 300SL) give me a shout. The car was hatched in California but I sold it in Naperville, IL in about 1976.

17
(less than a month ago)
Paid $750 for my 81 300SD...nothing wrong with it. Largest purchase so far? A BOSCH set of glow plugs
(PO had autolites...4/5 bad)

looks like your the only one who has beat me. but has anyone beat my price?

36 yrs old

1st MB
 

don't laugh guys, two months ago bought 1st one, 84 300DT . I'm only 69 and having a ball with it,ha,ha. Thanks to the Forum Bubbazook2 :

63 300SE coupe
 

I graduated from LSU in '68 and like most of my friends, got a "green suit, a gun and a foriegn vacation" from my uncle. Instead of the jungle tour, I got sent to a Nike Hercules battery in Landau Germany. It was great! We were paid well as officers, the Mark was 4 to 1 and the German people were wonderful so we lived very well. When I got to the battery I bought a 63 VW from the next guy to rotate out and started driving around.
The VW was very economical but it was so underpowered and such a deathtrap I decided in the interest of staying alive to get something faster and safer.
I went down to the Mercedes dealer in Karlsruhe and bought a 63 300SE Coupe for $2500. It had been a $13,000 car 6 years earlier but was a white elephant on the German used car market because it cost so much to put a tag on it. It was the coolest car any of us had ever seen at the time! It had originally been an executive car for a paper company in Hamburg and although it had about 100K miles it had a new motor so it ran like a bat outta hell. Air suspension, Burl walnut, leather interior, sunroof and a stick shift. At 100 MPH it felt like you were doing 50! What a ride! I was 24 at the time. I shipped it back to the states when I came home in "71 and kept it for about a year.
All told I drove the car about 60K miles and my only expenses were routine stuff. I sold it for $2600 to a guy who was going to fix it up. I might have kept the car except that I didnt have anywhere to work on it and parts were not very available at a reasonable price for it at the time. If it had been a 280SE coupe without the air suspension and a more common motor I might have been able to cope with it. The only flaw it had was that it had some rust from all of the salt they put on the roads over there and being from N'awlins I was not very alert to that. I had to let go of it.
Unfortunately, the new owner was driving it around in a heavy rainstorm a couple of months later and got in some high water in an underpass and sucked some in the engine putting it in a hydraulic bind. The last time I saw it was in a junkyard a couple of years later where it was rusting away and sinking into the ground.

I was 36 year old when I purchased my first Benz.

-George

Hmm, 1985 300SD, spring 2001

That would have made me a ripe old 52...

Why'd I wait so long???? ;)

Best Regards,

Jim

I was...
 

15, i got a mint 300sd about 2 weeks ago, bad engine, in the middle of an engine swap, Cost me 300$!! beat that. The new engine was 400$ shipped.

i was 19 (march 2004) when i bought my first and im sure it wont be my last

the 240D was my first. bought it October 2003, almost had it for a year. :)

Pontons- the Pontons were cool, but I had two that sponaneously burst into flame in the engine compartment. Still, anyone who owned one probably has some fond memories. When you hit the turn indicator the one on the top of the fender would cast a pulsing amber light into the car, and the highbeam indicator was blue- just the thing for two-laning it in the country with no streetlights.

The 180D had a listed top speed of 62 mph and that was no joke. It would do 60 all day, but 65 it would not do. They all rusted badly in the rocker panels in Seattle's climate.

Interesting subject, we bought the 450 when I was 10 (almost 6 years ago) and its been essentially my car as I was the only one to touch it. I put countless hours into her and torn apart nearly every system, except for the cruise. What a PITA those early vacuum controls were. Now I'm looking for a 300D to call my own. Technically first benz soon at 15, unofficially the 450 at age 10.

39 in 2002; 85 300SD

39. Not sure if the first one should have been a charity one, but I'm having some fun and frustrations trying to get it to run again. Got it a few months ago, and it's trying, but still not starting. Only after that can I check the trans, brakes, and all of that other stuff that you actually need to drive it.

I was 17 in 2003 bought a 83' 300SD. At first look I thought it was some old Benz, but after owning it, I feel in love. Huge tank and nice ride.

I got my first benz at the age of 20 a couple of months ago, in early july. Its a black 1998 E300 turbodiesel and has 147k, just broken in, and well maintained with all records

Puppies
 

56

OK six characters,

Was 40, last year. Can't believe I waited so long. Car is a 92 300D, 203k miles

39 years old. :eek:

same price as mine was. NICE!!

240d 4-speed, runs great, drives great, good paint, CD player, 4 MB Quart speakers, plush sheep seat covers. $300
You have been beat. I'm 20 though, so you do have me beat on years.
-Nate

18 when i received my 87 300D (Spring break of 2003).

If all goes well, 2 things will last until my great grand children, my newly acquired turtle, and my 300D :D


http://www.louisvillescene.com/calen...quarium/02.jpg

(that one is over 60 years old by the way)

All Most To Old
 

Was 60 2years Ago 96 300d A Fun Car ,turn On Dime, Run Like A Wtach ,also Run With The Big Boys On Turnpike 75-80

48 years young yet wanted an old person's car . . . hence a MB. :D

Got my first one at 22, a 76 240D, 4spd! Should have kept it, best car I ever owned until my current 300SD!