W111 Coupe need advice please
Discussion
Gentlemen,
There is a 250 SE Coupe in my area I am interested in... but I have some questions I must
clear before inspecting it... I don't want to go there unprepared
what are the weak points I must check out while I'm there? Rust spots?
Can the seatbelts be retrofitted?
The car has a sunroof, is it good or bad? Structure? Rust?
Is the enough legroom in the back to carry 1 or 2 adults?
What else must I look out for?
thanks in advance
Jan
There is a 250 SE Coupe in my area I am interested in... but I have some questions I must
clear before inspecting it... I don't want to go there unprepared
what are the weak points I must check out while I'm there? Rust spots?
Can the seatbelts be retrofitted?
The car has a sunroof, is it good or bad? Structure? Rust?
Is the enough legroom in the back to carry 1 or 2 adults?
What else must I look out for?
thanks in advance
Jan
Hi Jan,
If you haven't already, check out this thread that has a little bit of info about this model: http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
You'll see that I bought mine from a South London dealer and I have no complaints about that.
There will be rust on a '60's Merc, it's just a question of how much you can live or work with. I'm three years into a four rebuild of '69 Pagoda that's being done down to nuts and bolts and if I didn't consider the car a family member, I'd have walked away from it a long time ago. The reason I bought the 220SEb coupe is to keep me sane about doing the other car (Ain't Man Maths a wonderful thing). I decided to do the coupe on a budget of £5k on top of purchase price and I'm somewhere near that.
I got the best car I could afford regardless of colour, which turned out well. I looked at seven cars before choosing mine, the difference between them was night and day, but there were some regular gripes that kept popping up; rust around the headlights, five had little bubbles under the paint, one had had new wings £800 each and my car which needed patching and new light bowls.
Boot floors, rear suspension turrets and sills are all suspect areas. Only one car had a full fabric folding sunroof and that worked well, but the paint had cracked in the corners over the windscreen, I'm guessing torsional twist in the bodywork over the years, but it was a large sunroof. There was also some discolouration on the headlining where there had been a leak too.
Almost all of the cars had little pressure dings on the chrome bumpers, front and/or rear. Merc don't make these anymore and they're four figures from the only people I'd recommend, see the other thread about that. Incidentally, Merc also don't make many of the fabric items and sun visors for the interior of the car, indicator switches is another one. The chrome bits are rare and expensive so make sure they're all there, E-Bay's ok for sourcing most parts and if you look on the U.S. site there's a lot of bits available, check the postage cost and whether they'll ship over here before bidding though.
You can seat four adults, but if you're anywhere near 6' it will cramp your style a little, back seats are comfortable and the front seats are like lounge furniture, really comfortable, but re-springing and padding is expensive. It's good leather on all the seats so try and work with it if possible. I had the passenger seat re-padded and the leather freshened up for about £70, looks great.
The seatbelts I had retrofitted from some old inertias and two generic clips, gotta be honest and say that it's not completely successful. It's the pillarless coupe thing. There's no high point on the 'B' pillar to hold the top retainer for the inertia belt in place and it keeps pulling back over your shoulder and locking in place. I wish I'd kept the lap belts instead, but I'm still looking into this to see if I can get the inertias to work.
My car is slow, heavy and it does wallow in the bends in spite of new shocks all round, but it '60's motoring as you'd expect it to be. You're gonna love the sense of occasion when you're behind that huge chrome star sticking bolt upright out of the grill and the vaulted wings over the headlights make the whole front end look so dramatic. This car's been worth the hassle I've had, not a full restoration, but tarted up, I'd recommend this model to anyone.
BTW, I spent £26500 approx to get it where it is today including purchase price and have an agreed insurance valuation of £34500, so buying now shouldn't leave you out of pocket, (dependent on bodywork of course).
Hope this helps,
Mark
If you haven't already, check out this thread that has a little bit of info about this model: http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
You'll see that I bought mine from a South London dealer and I have no complaints about that.
There will be rust on a '60's Merc, it's just a question of how much you can live or work with. I'm three years into a four rebuild of '69 Pagoda that's being done down to nuts and bolts and if I didn't consider the car a family member, I'd have walked away from it a long time ago. The reason I bought the 220SEb coupe is to keep me sane about doing the other car (Ain't Man Maths a wonderful thing). I decided to do the coupe on a budget of £5k on top of purchase price and I'm somewhere near that.
I got the best car I could afford regardless of colour, which turned out well. I looked at seven cars before choosing mine, the difference between them was night and day, but there were some regular gripes that kept popping up; rust around the headlights, five had little bubbles under the paint, one had had new wings £800 each and my car which needed patching and new light bowls.
Boot floors, rear suspension turrets and sills are all suspect areas. Only one car had a full fabric folding sunroof and that worked well, but the paint had cracked in the corners over the windscreen, I'm guessing torsional twist in the bodywork over the years, but it was a large sunroof. There was also some discolouration on the headlining where there had been a leak too.
Almost all of the cars had little pressure dings on the chrome bumpers, front and/or rear. Merc don't make these anymore and they're four figures from the only people I'd recommend, see the other thread about that. Incidentally, Merc also don't make many of the fabric items and sun visors for the interior of the car, indicator switches is another one. The chrome bits are rare and expensive so make sure they're all there, E-Bay's ok for sourcing most parts and if you look on the U.S. site there's a lot of bits available, check the postage cost and whether they'll ship over here before bidding though.
You can seat four adults, but if you're anywhere near 6' it will cramp your style a little, back seats are comfortable and the front seats are like lounge furniture, really comfortable, but re-springing and padding is expensive. It's good leather on all the seats so try and work with it if possible. I had the passenger seat re-padded and the leather freshened up for about £70, looks great.
The seatbelts I had retrofitted from some old inertias and two generic clips, gotta be honest and say that it's not completely successful. It's the pillarless coupe thing. There's no high point on the 'B' pillar to hold the top retainer for the inertia belt in place and it keeps pulling back over your shoulder and locking in place. I wish I'd kept the lap belts instead, but I'm still looking into this to see if I can get the inertias to work.
My car is slow, heavy and it does wallow in the bends in spite of new shocks all round, but it '60's motoring as you'd expect it to be. You're gonna love the sense of occasion when you're behind that huge chrome star sticking bolt upright out of the grill and the vaulted wings over the headlights make the whole front end look so dramatic. This car's been worth the hassle I've had, not a full restoration, but tarted up, I'd recommend this model to anyone.
BTW, I spent £26500 approx to get it where it is today including purchase price and have an agreed insurance valuation of £34500, so buying now shouldn't leave you out of pocket, (dependent on bodywork of course).
Hope this helps,
Mark
Hello Mark,
Thank you very much for your extensive explanation! Good the hear that seatbelts can be retrofitted! Do you think it can be used for short holidays on the continent? I try to hunt one down before winter, but it is going to be difficult to find the right colour for my budget...
What colour is yours? The picture in your profile doesn't work?!
I quite like(ed) this one but it has the wrong engine and maybe even a non period colour for the bodywork. The salesman doesn't reply to my messages... sometimes I ask myself how they think they'll manage to sell their cars...?
http://auto-sale.be/sale/fr/regarde.php?id=1313
greetings,
Jan
Thank you very much for your extensive explanation! Good the hear that seatbelts can be retrofitted! Do you think it can be used for short holidays on the continent? I try to hunt one down before winter, but it is going to be difficult to find the right colour for my budget...
What colour is yours? The picture in your profile doesn't work?!
I quite like(ed) this one but it has the wrong engine and maybe even a non period colour for the bodywork. The salesman doesn't reply to my messages... sometimes I ask myself how they think they'll manage to sell their cars...?
http://auto-sale.be/sale/fr/regarde.php?id=1313
greetings,
Jan
Sorry Jan, haven't updated my profile pic in some time, but here's my old coupe.
I did look at the car in your link and most of it seems to be there. I noted some of the chrome had flaked and the front bumper looks flat spotted on the sides. There's also some discoloration on the headlining and on the padding on the dashboard. All bargaining points I think. Engine bay looks better than mine as does the wood around the dash and binnacle, but there's no rear end shot that I could find so check the chrome on the bumpers. Also check the gutter rails at the side of the sunroof, the passenger side looks a bit suspect.
Good luck getting in touch with them.
Edited: I looked again this morning on a different p.c. and saw two shots of the back of the car, that rear bumper looks as bad as mine was, that's a £700 item right there. Check out Group Harrington on E-Bay for a full set of Stainless Steel bumpers. I can thoroughly recommend them.
Edited by DB7 pilot on Wednesday 9th September 12:06
Gassing Station | Mercedes | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff