Mercedes-Benz W124 300 TE 4Matic Estate: Spotted
Chris Harris gets misty eyed over an apparently box fresh 80s Merc Estate.
A delivery miles pre-facelift, 1988 W124 E300 4Matic Estate.
There’s a little bit of me – the profoundly unadventurous portion – that wonders why any car manufacturer which can claim to have built an iconic model in the past 40 years doesn’t just constantly hark-back to that design. It has hardly done Porsche much harm, has it?
I wrote a column about this years ago: Peugeot should just do a modern, crash-resistant 205, that way people like me would stop crapping on about the old days and it would probably sell more cars.
Likewise, perhaps Mercedes should just re-imagine the W124, because the world just seems to love the things – me included.
I’ve often wondered how a new W124 would fare in a group test of modern machines – no doubt it would be toasted in every objective area, but I bet it would feel like a lower-volume, more special machine than anything from 2012. Driving this might answer that question.
Of course what you want to ask the chap selling this one is simply: “How?”
And, “Where did it come from?” And a dozen other questions, including “And why have you got another near-zero-miles W124 for sale too?”
No doubt it’ll need anything rubber in the engine bay and attached to an alloy wheel replaced because it will have perished and cracked, and after 24 years the air-con might need a re-charge.
But right now I’m wondering if there’s a cooler new estate on the market than a box-fresh W124.
Click here to see more Mercedes W124s in our classifieds, including this at entirely the other end of the spectrum
Adverts for past and present cars for sale can be found here: http://www.w124.co.uk/carsforsale.php
Best regards,
Matt.
Sadly a very expensive sounding twang from the rear end one day when the car was heavily loaded and some bodywork issues saw me chop it on scrappage scheme for a now ex-girlfriend. I wish I'd kept it, and saved it. It was such a good car for so many reasons:
- Cavernous
- Comfortable
- Quiet
- Despite it's size, very easy to park
- Despite the weedy engine it was really quick!
- Other W124 owners would always come over and chat / wave!
Apart from the horrendous spelling, it doesn't make much sense: the paint has traces of use, that have deliberately not been corrected...
The 150km car is even weirder..
"300 TE 4-Matic mit 150 Km.(Km angaben sind verbindlich) Grundrevision Lack im originalzustand mit geringen Ausbesserungen,Innenausstattung teilweise Neu,Technik kommplett Neu."
Fully restored ... paint in original condition with minor improvements, interior partially new, mechanically completely new.
MUCH better to splash out for a good one at a price than a bad cheap one, the bad ones can have £xxxx thrown at them and still not be great.
We put most of the miles on all of them, and they rarely wanted for anything.
For the last 100k of ownership none of them had much more than fluid top ups. All 3 ran very strongly and actually felt fairly fresh when we parted company (1 stolen, 1 written off and another sold in spain).
Awesome cars, indestructable is a good description- dirt cheap to run because of it. And I wouldn't baulk at a cheap 'bad' one....
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