Junkyard Gem: 1980 Mercedes-Benz 300 TD

From Carl Benz’s first automotive in 1885 by way of proper now, one Mercedes-Benz product has by far the strongest popularity for reliability and construct high quality: the W123, ancestor of the E-Class. Diesel-engined W123s turned legendary for working perpetually, and so many of those vehicles have had no drawback staying in on a regular basis service that it takes them till now to wear down and present up in automotive graveyards. At the moment’s Junkyard Gem is a type of vehicles, a particularly smart 300 TD station wagon that confirmed up in a California wrecking yard final summer season.

It is robust to seek out gauge clusters in these vehicles in California boneyards, as a result of eBay sellers are inclined to seize them inside days (and even hours) of their look in a yard’s stock. This automotive nonetheless had its cluster, so we will see that it traversed 254,624 miles throughout its 42 years of existence. Contemplating that I’ve discovered discarded Stuttgart oil-burners with properly previous 500,000 miles on the clock, a mere 254k simply qualifies as respectable for one among these vehicles.

The turbocharged model of this engine wasn’t out there in the USA till the 1981 mannequin 12 months, so what we have got here’s a naturally-aspirated 3.0-liter OM617 five-cylinder, rated at 77 horsepower and 115 pound-feet. That is proper, seventy-seven horsepower, in a automotive that weighed 3,635 kilos. You needed to be affected person when driving one among these machines. A few years after this automotive was offered, I took my driver coaching courses in a German automotive with simply 48 diesel horsepower.

The successor to the W123 was the W124, which was the primary Mercedes-Benz mannequin to get the E-Class designation (although not till 1993).

This one has light paint, however the MB-Tex faux-leather upholstery inside nonetheless appears to be like good.

In contrast to so many Malaise Period junkyard vehicles that I discover throughout my travels, this one appears to be like prefer it did not spend a long time sitting motionless in a yard or driveway. As an alternative, it was used as transportation till it wore out or simply obtained too out of date.

Definitely the best automotive for the massive household.