HMC

Niice pics, how did you get theat distortion effect in the pic of the BMW stand?

Mileage just jurned over to 170k today. Whats your headlining like and do you know anywhere that would tackle replacing it?

It looks in fairly decent nick overall, esp considering its almost 25 years old. The doors have been repaired previously, theres a (neat) patch in the boot floor, tunnels ok. Agreed, its a nice refreshing change from the misery of the merc's performance. I love mercs, but I found that one to be totally devoid of character. Theres a slight whine in the lower gears. I'm unsure wether to be worried about this or not. no jumping out of gears, and they select cleanly. I've got it in next week at my local respected saab specialist to give it a once over as I fancy driving it to Germany at the end of next month, but not without having that whining checked! Stuck on a miserable drizzly Belgian motorway with a blown 'box wouldnt go down well with the missus!!

I bought a landrover defender 90 xs new in 2004 and a new honda civic type r in 2005. At some stage I reallised that old chod is far more individual and interesting, snd far easier on the pocket so my present cars (aside from the mrs modern) are of 1964 and 1988 vintage

I grew bored of my reliable but gutless w124 200te. Buying a car with the heaviest body and the smallest engine in the range was never a recipie for fun, though it was a decent enough mode of transport .... I ended up doing a trade for this saab 900T16.... Its been a long time since I last owned one, the narrow upright cabin is a familiar place as at one stage I owned six or seven, crashing two of them in the course of ownership. This one has some period fog lamps, and some extra dash mounted guages. As per most older 900s, the headling would be drooping around your ears if it hadnt been pinned up with tacks

I think wilson was a white wedge, the red wedge also been through Nick Larkins hands I think as it was featured in the staff Sagas in PC around 1996ish. Seem to remember it was registered later on a P but is a 74 build? Motoring journo Richard Bremner had a part share in an earlyish mini reg XLL27, he debated in C&SC the rolling sculpture/ do we restore thing in an article about said mini. I didnt think about XLL27 again untill I saw it in some auction results this year, still untouched, under the hammer for 14K!!

WOW! every time i look at the pics it just gets better- the graphics, the seats, the sunroof, even the V Power labelled battery! bet this turns a few heads,

If your covering a reasonable mileage, a barge is a nice way to go. Ive sold my 500sel, but that was avaliable in budget. You dont end up being left behind or getting bored if you have a reasonably accelerative car (though fuel stops may be more frequent) You usually end up less tired so you can have more time and energy to put toward the evenings festivities. My old w140- stick the cruise on and watch the world go by (and fuel guage drop) A pic from a former owner of my banger rallied 190e. Not really a barge though. Personally an old w126 s class would be my choice, plus if you need a theme, one of you can dress up as a sheik and lounge around in the back or whatever. Within budget they can be had, plus if you are going to plaster it in decals, rust holes and peeling laquer dont really matter. I bought a 500 quid 500sel w126 last year and went to Germany to see family and back in it, had a great trip. Plus if it gets damaged or whatever en route, they are worth more in spares at this sort of level in the market

My merc 190e was used in a banger charity run a few years ago, was apparently reliable and escaped unscathed aside from a few unusual dents in the roof from people climbing over/ standing on it. they can readily be had for under 500, and are not rare or interesting as per your spec

Progress made in solving the mouldy swimming pool ambience of the 560sec. Did a bit experimentation with a wine glass full of water and figured out that one of the front sunroof drain tubes, rather than siphoning water down the A pillar and onto the wheelarch, was allowing it through a rusty hole into the headling and down the a post trim all over the dash and floor. Gr9 for cultivating spores etc. Some dismantling, hosepipe and silicone sealant later and i think i#ve got it fixed

I think its vehicles from the mid 80s to early 90s that are in the sweet spot for daily use. Boring but practical factors such as rust proofing and crash protection, heating and ventilation on an upward curve and in that period electrics and management systems had yet to become overly complex. Most car were relatively simply engineered and hence are easy for us to diagnose and repair, yet ad the same time not dissolving before our eyes or having macochistic service requirements. Hence I arive at my w124 200te and w126 560sec. The ecomomy of particularly the latter, whilst poor, in my mind is offset by the avoidance of much higher purchace costs and often eyewatering depreciation. Plus i just like them!

After a bit of swappage I have ended up with a 1987 w126 560sec. This one had 12 months ticket but is in a sort of hazy late 90s high rise spec timewarp. primered wings, tired paint and a slightly tappety engine. Option 822 on the build sheet means a high compression 300bhp unit, though id wager a few of those horses may have long since left the corral. Its been off the road since 2007 and the general air of neglect and feel of the car is improving as it gets used, and as i get rid of the filth and mould from the interior. as its an 87 model this is too early for asr (early traction controll) so its easy to break traction from a standing start. The original becker mexico seems stuck on a 90s dance/ rap station which suits it well, i remenber them being driven agressively round manchester in this state with the volume turned up, with things for sale in the boot or stashed in the cills etc.

L plate merc 190s. The successor c class was launched around the L plate intro, so the last of the old dealer stock went out on an L. This one i picked up a few weeks ago as a project car. ST is an Inverness registration, not often seen in Devon!

When in heavy summer traffic, if the cooling systems a bit marginal, crank up the heater. Never popular with passengers!!!

Mobil ran a bmw e30 325 up to 1 million miles on mobil1 in the late 80s on some sort of test bed or high speed bowl for a promo, stripped the engine later etc etc, It cropped up for sale a few years ago, its earlier history unknown, still going strong

Lovely! like the idea of the manual boost controller on that one. I saw a 960 estate (2.8, no turbo) crop up locally for sale last week, reading your write up leaves me regretting not buying it!

My next door neighbour in his back garden... Always a variety of vehicles inclubing jaguars mk 10, s type, xjs and 420, but mainly many rotten triumph spitfires and hearlds being repaired or broken for spares

my old n/a saab 900 would do about 30 mpg at 70, whereas the turbo s used to give 34-35, partly i suspected due to the higher top (2.7k at 70 rather than 3k) my old land rover 90 td5 (quite useless on the motorway) would do 27mpg at 70 and 22mpg at a flat out 82mph. My now departed w126 500sel at 2.2k revs with the cruise on at at 70 would deliver 28mpg, which i didnt think half bad. My best ever mpg was 55mpg from a 405 1.9td, the worst 9mpg from a rusty, mouldy and incontinent xj12

This pattern of abductions has spread as west as devon. in 2008 I had a guy mad keen on buying an 88 saab 900, test drive, ill be over on saturday with the cash m8 etc. Its now clear to me that he too was a victim, he was taken leaving no trace for me (or his poor family) to follow and in the end the car was sent over the bridge. I do tend to find its the sub 500 stuff, that tends to increase the chance of alien abduction. Ultra cheap stuff these days i send over the bridge, and in doing so i selflessly hope more human lives will be spared

Well after smoking around in it for a while I changed the fluids and filters, thermostat and temperature guage sensor, which restored a dicky guage reading to something much more believable. I fiddled with the valve block that operates the soft close doors and now they work! Thats been the most satisfying bit of tinkering to date. After figuring out how to get it to start off in first gear i also showed a clean pair of heels to lads in a barried up citroen something of other that wantad a traffic light grand prix. Childish but satisfying. I have also become an expert at the cheapest local suppliers of unleaded. The wife still cant stand the sight of it.

Not bad at all for the money. Cant think of the last time I saw an unbarried one, still less a 5 door model!

Good work! looking forward to the after pics as the originals made me wonder how well the paint would shape up

Had the chance to give the S a clean/ once over, and whilst shuffling the cars round, thought i'd do a sort of family picture....

So today I collected the car.I parked up at the station beside a similar vintage family wagon..... Mines on the right, though I have always liked the look of the 240 and have nearly bought one several times..... Things got off to a bad start, as the train was cancelled. In the absence of any help at the station, i managed to figure out a service leaving earlier, at 8.25 called at Cheltenham Spa too. Good. At this point it was 8.25 so after a bit of a dash, and with seconds to spare, i just about made it onto the train. Phew. The rest of the outgoing trip was quite relaxed, I idly thumbed through 1986 and 1991 editions of CAR whilst watching the world go by. Autoshite heaven? A short trip from the station saw me arrive at the salvage yard to collect the beast. Despite it being a salvage yard it was far removed from the muddy puddles and rottweilers of those I went to as a kid. I passed various expensively crashed cars, all neatly arranged. I was distracted for a while trying to figure our how a maser quattroporte had ended up shaped like a banana! I climbed aboard into the sofa sized drivers seat, closed the double glazed door and gazed into the distance at the silver star on the prow of this supertanker. So yes, it was a w140 s class. A 500SEL. I'd leant from my previous w126s that I prefered the ones with the bigger engines! It had been owned for the last 15 years by the MD's Aunt who had reluctantly let it go. Despite buying the replacement (another s class) she held onto it for another year or so. It turned out the final sale price wasnt particularly important, just that it would be looked after. It came with a wad of service history, a reasonable amount of tax and test, 4 new winter tyres fitted, and 4 continental summer tyres in the boot. First thing I did after hitting the road was to fill the tank. 100 litres capacity, you 'do the math'. I swallowed and handed over my card. Better get used to it! A quick check over of fluid levels and we were off. After starting up again the car was missfiring and down on power as I eased off the forecourt. Did I have my AA card? I can only imagine it may have disturbed some silt in the tank as once i'd cleared its throat on a slip road, it ran fine and has done since, thankfully. I had wafted back with the cruise on, busying myself with the testing of the various electric gadgets to check they work. (this took a while!) I'm pleased Its got the original slightly unfathomable becker radio cassette, which has usually been binned by now for a modern head unit. The cabin is just enormous- i'm 6 foot but just look at the seat position! I can only imagine in the R&D dept at MB during the 1980s theyd run out of true innovations, as a rear view mirror controlled electrically by a joystick on the dash, whilst impressive, does seem a bit pointless. For the american market maybe? I did stop at michael wood services for a double whopper meal (highly appropriate I thought) Getting it to fit in a space in the busy car park brought home how vast it is (LWB model) with the nose in as far as it could go the back end still stuck out ridiculously. Its got some sort of antennae which poke out of the rear wings when you reverse to help you figure out where the back end is. Away from car parks etc it does feel much smaller, and on a favourite b road stretch back to the house, i was suprised how agile it was through some of the curves. I dont really know what 'the plan' is with this one. Its a bit of a white elephant, the wife says its big and ugly (it is, i told her) the huge stats (18 feet long I think, 322bhp 155mph limited) are countered by the smaller ones (MPG) yet it is hugely satisfying to drive round in.......

Well some of you are quite close. I'm due to collect it tomorrow, and bring it back under its own power I hope. I'll leave it untill the collection mission write up to let you know what it is. It was first registered in 1992, and its type was chariot of choice for Col. Gadaffi