Also thinking about an older Volvo........they do well in the snow and ice and seem to be easy to work on......

Personally I'd go with a Toyota Corona, or maybe a Renault Megane. If you want good in the snow, you can't beat an aircooled VW Beetle. For maximum passenger and cargo capacity, a used school bus is a good choice, either Bluebird or Thomas.

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1998 E300 turbodiesel

America's Rights and Freedoms Are Not The Enemy!

They are, supremely simple, rugged long lived and reliable, the 240.
None of that applies to a $1500 one with 250K on it though, but
in good order, they are wonderful needing only a few upgrades from stock to be great drivers.
Looks like $4000ish buys an honestly nice 240 that isn't ate up with differed
maintenance these days, good deals notwithstanding.

740 and 940 are about the same, maybe cheaper, hard to find not ragged out though, they are victims of their own durability. Mercedes crap out if you don't maintain them as intended, Volvo's will slowly deteriorate forever with no care and keep going, till they are too far gone to bother fixing. The tradeoff being a Volvo is not a Mercedes no matter how hard you try to make it one, believe me, I tried. But you can buy a manual trans RWD turbo intercooled Volvo and then go order all the trick suspension and brake parts and a T5 trans swap kit and damn near anything else one could want for them these days, so.. Depends on where one's priorities lay. The turbo models get really fast really easily with not a lot of money and little loss in reliability or driveability within reason.

I've owned a lot of 80's Volvo's. Not a Mercedes, but also not a Mercedes.

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One more Radar Lover gone...
1982 VW Caddy diesel 406K 1.9L AAZ
1994 E320 195K