As we say in the deep throes of the never-ending Pandemic, another day and another Facebook Marketplace find. Today I came across this 1983 Mercedes Benz 300CD for sale not far from our triple-wide here on Cleveland, Ohio's far west side. Asking price is $8,000. As they say up here on the shores of erielhonan, "geezle peet".
Here's the thing - based on its overall condition, you have to look past these amusingly bad pictures, and looking at NADA pricing guidelines, the asking price is on point. Would someone actually pay that much for a wheezy old oil burner that's mind-numbing slow, is incredibly expensive to fix and gets only so-so mileage? I. Guess. So? But that person sure as heck is not going to be me. Holy (literal) smokes.
These days it seems that being wealthy is a commodity, well, let's be clear, appearing to be wealthy is as it's always been but whomever drove this when it was new had to "have it" since at more than $35,000 out-the-door, if they didn't "have it", their kids would go hungry. They'd go hungry too. And for what? To impress whomever?
Today's soliloquy, however, isn't about being fiscally responsible or not but about this car that despite it being diesel powered, is still quite beguiling if not intriguing. I don't think there's an actual dollar amount that would have me go look at it in person although I'm curious as to the back story about it. Cars that sit in garages for a while do, unfortunately, tend to turn into make shift shelving. Happens to the best of us. Oh, and what's with the baby?
Our '83 here was built on the now legendary Mercedes-Benz W123 platform. The W123, pronounced double-you, one, two, three, was not revolutionary, but “rather a thoroughly mature mid-range car combining the latest engineering with tried and tested design features”. That sober summary by M-B reflects the lasting legacy of the W123 – a solidly built automobile with timeless poise and class. You didn't get a better built car in 1983; you got what you paid for.
Introduced in 1976, the W123 platform included a four-door sedan and our sleek coupe; C in the 300CD denoting "coupe", the "D" of course denoting "Diesel". The W123 offered a longer wheelbase than the platform it replaced, the W114 and W115 also known as the "Stroke Eight's", a wider track, and a larger body. The coupes lacked a "B-pillar" or center-post thus giving the cars their decidedly sporting Aire. Apparently the term "Stroke Eight" harkens back to 1968, the year they were introduced. Still working on what "stroke" refers to. Anyone?
Dr. Diesel's lump first appeared when the wagon version of the W123 was introduced for model-year 1978. Displacing a healthy 3.0-liter's, the five-cylinder engine developed seventy-nine brake-horsepower and one-hundred twenty-five foot-pounds of torque. It was made available on the 300C the following year and through the end of the model's run in 1985.
With the four-speed automatic transmission, when new, our CD here did zero-to-sixty in twenty-one seconds. That's not just slow, freundinnen, that's slower than most documented SAE minimums of acceleration speed I've ever seen. Oh, but it gets twenty-three miles per gallon and can run forever. LS swap anyone?
In theory, at least, you could fathom that this car would pay for itself or amortize equally given that it got that much better mileage than other expensive cars in its day. Well, that may have been true to some degree back in 1978 but even by 1983, General Motors and Ford, for example, were able to give their buyers similar mileage in their luxury wares. And at quite the cost savings up front too. Then again, you got what you paid for.
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