Mercedes Monday: Flippin' Regret

"TractorPillow" (tractorpillow) 08/03/2015 at 12:29 • Filed to: None

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Happy Mercedes Monday! Here’s my story of my now-unfortunately-gone beauty.

Growing up my sister had a ’83 300TD with 400,000 miles and it was glorious. Made me always have a thing for older Mercedes. I moved from WA to AL and had sold my Mazdaspeed3 before making the move. I needed a daily driver so I perused Craigslist. Columbus GA (my closest CL) is a wasteland of terrible vehicles and poorly maintained cars that are missing tons of parts that “you can easily find at autozone for $0.93 but just haven’t had the time to fix.”

But I found one that quickly caught my eye (these two are the exact pictures that were posted on craigslist).

It was gorgeous. It was brown. It was a V8. It was pillarless. And it was a 420 SEC?!?! I initially thought it was a typo, but sure enough, it was imported back in the 80’s and is one of only a handful of 420 SEC’s in the states. The car also only had 67,000 miles. Awesome car find in a sea of Chargers and rusty Grand Marquis.

The only problem was a tear in the front seat and the front tires needed changing. No biggie. The buyer wanted a mere $6,500 for it but came down to mid 5’s.

The 420 SEC was amazing (minus the gas mileage which was around 14-16 MPG). It was pretty quick, strong, and looked awesome. It just felt like “quality.” That’s a hard concept to explain, but you know it when you see it. The previous owners had also taken good care of her.

One of the coolest part of any older car is the history that can come with it. This one had all of the original paperwork from Bavaria until present day (see the huge binder with all the document protectors). Mind you – this is all in German and I had no clue what most of it said. The coolest thing was the original, unopened first-aid kit that was still in the fancy schmancy First-Aid Kit cubby behind the back seat.

I fixed the seat, changed the tires, did some small maintenance items and attempted to “flip” my first car to make some money. The only problem was that I really loved it and did not want to see it go, but I knew the right buyer would be willing to pay much more than I did.

I drove the car from October to February and sold it for about twice what I paid for it. It went to a really nice owner who had Intercity ship it off to his garage where he has a small collection of older F and P cars. I thought I had made a great decision, and still think it was a wise financial choice…at least in the short term.

6 months later and I am in the process of selling my daily-ish driver and looking for another car. Every other search is for SEC’s or SL’s from the 80’s. They just don’t make them like they used to, at least in my humble opinion.

What stinks is that I had a low mileage, perfect paint, reliable beauty that I let go. Now I would have to pay equal or more to get one in the same condition. There is probably a lesson in there somewhere, but the truth is I am probably just gonna wind up with a 560SL so that way it’s a different car and I feel better about my decision.

Either way, if you are in the market for a really cool car and stumble upon an SEC for a good price then jump on it! And if it’s a 420 SEC then just make sure to bring someone that knows German.

Also, I know the chrome wheel arches are terrible…I eventually did take them off.