Here's a bit of a story for you as well..It's a bit lengthy...sorry!:

It all started when I was bratty kid. Roughly 5 in age. We used to go to Europe and Visit relatives in Yugoslavia, now Croatia and other countries. My father always rented a Mercedes-Benz every time we went. They were always diesel. I could tell by the smell they put out and the sound. It always reminded me of the buses at the LAX airport. It reminded me of the "IT WAS TIME TO GO SOME WHERE" feeling. I was always excited to hear the diesel clack! When we were on the AUTOBAUN once, I was standing up in the front seat(super-smart parenting huh?) and my dad said the star would take me to happy places. So from then on I was pretty much obsessed with MB diesels.

Fast forward, to date, I have owned several Mercedes-Benz diesels. A 1982 300SD in Anthracite Grey with a gray interior in perfect condition except the engine was not taken care of unfortunately so it really never ran well. A 1979 240D White with a rust interior and a 1978 240D Ivory with a chocolate interior. These two were buckets cosmetically on the interior, but none-the-less they always ran perfect. I sold them for more than I purchased them! A 1985 300D perfect! I bought it in at 230mi and It climbed to well over 380mi. It was Titanium Silver and had Black interior absolutely perfect. So, at one point I had sold them all in order to buy a house, but, I was wanting a W124 estate shortly before I found my house. This time, I wanted it to be perfect. If I could find a diesel in Silver with Black, I would be in heaven. I needed something to tote my music equipment around in none-the-less it would help with the move(all we can say to justify the purchase besides the fact I just had to have it!). But I wasn't going to give up the star. Fast forward again, I finally found the prefect E320 estate with the winter packaging. Those cute little headlamp washers are rare for this dull California weather. Although it is not a diesel, completely rare in CA, it is just perfect.

So, after all this perfect-ness in the W124...I seemed to miss my 240s. I really loved em'. They ran perfect, they were inexpensive to repair, and gave me the childhood memory of the diesel clack and Europe. Of course over the years, I have come to appreciate the car for it's sturdy, simplistic, minimalist design and of the heart...the ever reliable 4cyl diesel.

So the story goes for the 240D you see in these pictures above, that when I was 16.5, I wanted to buy a barely used 1982 240D I saw on the local MB lot ...It was White and had a Palomino interior. It was really never used except for being a dealer car and it was now 1983. it had only 9800K miles on it and it was for sale for $14,500 but my father said I was crazy and I would never be able to pay for it none alone fix it if it needed to be. He was probably right. But I missed the greatest chance ever to purchase what I ended up with today in these photos. I woke up one morning knowing I wanted this car in this color. I checked the web first off from sites Alfie and a few other W123 enthusiasts had handed to me, local papers and ebay wasn't cutting it for me. On cars.com It was staring me right in the face new that morning on the site. A perfect 1982 240D White with Palomino. The ad said in perfect condition 1 owner. So I jumped the gun and got in my W124 and raced to see it already knowing it was the one. It happened to be located within a few miles of where I grew up a ways away from LONG BEACH. It was owned by an engineer that claims he designed all the oil refineries in Southern California. He had a garage full of exotic cars and was making room for his newest. So with all his other autos he had collected, the 240 had not been driven in 7 years he claimed. Low mileage, perfect condition, started right up, and the steering wheel had a band around it that his wife put on it 2 days after owning it. I couldn't wait to bring it home to take it off. So I bought it without question, and away I went. parked her in the garage and made a few improvements gave her a wax job and GOOD OL' MONEY PENNY is good as new and she's mine!!!!!!!! Thanks Alfie for your reference to this site.

I named her Money Penny...with light she reminds me of Louis Maxwell from the 1980's James Bond films. Always put together, but the older she gets, she starts sounding like a drag queen...hence the good 'ol diesel at heart! To this day I wonder if she is that car that I wanted so much back then.

Glenn