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1978 Mercedes 240D Diesel - $200
Reply to: sale-285556898@craigslist.org
Date: 2007-02-27, 10:59AM PST
1978 Mercedes 240D Automatic
As many know, early Mercedes diesels came in several flavors.
1. The 300d 5 cylinder automatic, which was really underpowered.
2. The 240D 4 cylinder stick, which was dangerously underpowered.
3. The 240D 4 cylinder automatic, which was suicidally underpowered.
With the last choice, many came with factory air. Turn the air on and
the car literally might never reach 55mph floored on dry, level ground.
This is the car I am selling (#3 w/air). Here is the run-down on the vehicle (and speaking of run-down, read on).
THE GOOD
It starts and drives.
Most of the lights work.
All the doors open and shut.
It has bumpers.
It has a hood and window glass.
It comes to a stop sooner or later when U press the brake pedal.
The rubber is OK.
Running as rough as it does, the shaking feels kind of good on your back at idle.
Throwing huge billowing clouds of smoke out the back, as it does
when you hit the gas, it would make a great get-away vehicle (as long
as whoever was chasing you was on foot, and not in great shape.)
The BAD AND/OR UGLY
Few, if any of the gauges work
The engine smokes.
It has been out of registration for a while.
It has oil leaks.
It sounds like it might be running on three cylinders.
There are so many vacuum leaks you always have to manually shut the
engine off by pressing the emergency stop button in the engine
compartment
The dash is coming off.
The seat backs are missing.
There is a huge wire coil sticking out of the driver's seat bottom that would make any proctologist or accupuncturist proud.
The car has been used for storage for years. Not a bad thing, until you realize that some of the stored items used to be food.
Most of the trim is missing.
None of the climate control stuff works right.
The places where there is still carpet don't smell very good.
This car was owned for twenty years by an elderly man who was from
another country and had never owned a car. He is not a bad guy, and was
very proud of his car. So proud in fact, that he would polish it almost
daily. Unfortunately, he did not know the difference between rubbing
compound and wax. So he used rubbing compound, almost daily. When he
bought the car, it was somewhat oxidized, with the original burgandy
paint job in restorable condition. I explained to him that after he
removed the oxidized paint with rubbing and polishing compounds, he
could wax it and have a shiny old car. He understood as far as the
rubbing compound. It took him about a month to rub his way down to the
primer on the roof. He must have realized that the color change from
burgandy to gray was not a good thing, so he stopped there - and went
out and bought some spray paint. In his early seventies, he did not see
very well, so he experimented with a variety of colors trying to get a
match. When none of Home Depot's offerings exactly matched the original
finish, he had the somewhat logical idea of redoing ALL the paint. So
he went out and bought a case of spray paint.and went to town. At least
it was Rustoleum - there is very little rust visible on the vehicle
today. Well, the spray finish wasn't very shiny (except maybe where it
was thick enough to sag and run), so he shellaced the car. And there it
was, his shiny Mercedes.
And now it can be yours!
Well, almost - so far we can't find the title.
So, you might be asking yourself, what good is this vehicle? Well,
there are many things you could do with it for fun and profit.
F'rinstance -
1. You could make bets with people about whether or not it runs, and then dissapear with their money in a cloud of blue smoke.
2. You could commit suicide by taking it on the freeway.
3. You could add a quart of Roundup to the oil and drive around the neighborhood killing all the joggers and crabgrass.
4. You could commit suicide by slowly backing up on a windless day.
5. You could cut the roof off, fill it with dirt, and grow toxic vegetables.
6. Put on a "wife-beater" and leather chaps, and drive it to LAX
and stop in front of terminals yelling "TAXI!, TAXI!" and try and coax
people to get in. If anyone actual gets in your "cab", turn around and
tell them "your it!", jump out and run away, leaving them with the
vehicle.
7. You could park it across the front of your driveway as a barrier to suicide car-bombers.
8. Save it as the "vehicle-of-choice" to drive to IRS audits.
9. Dust off that leisure suit and drive it around Venice telling
hippie-chicks it runs on biodiesel, and see how lucky you get. Tell 'em
your Beemers in the shop. Show them the tofu under the carpet. It'll
get 'em hot, I promise.
10. You could get really stoned, pile all your friends in it, and
drive it in to Mercedes dealerships to get estimates on restoring it.
See what Hans has to say. They have free espresso and munchies. Make
sure they itemize the repair estimate. Make sure to ask about
warranties.
I am sure you can think of even more uses for this wonderful,
one-of-a-kind vehicle. So give me a call at 310-507-3539 and we can
discuss the next chapter in the life of Das Wreck.
- This item has been posted by-owner.
- Location: Carson
- it's ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
PostingID: 285556898
