Need Help!! Old MERCEDES to be CRUSHED in one week!!!!

tdugovic

Here is a pic of the car. It is a mercedes.
[url]http://imagehost.auctionwatch.com/preview/du/dugo/mercedes1.jpg[/url]

The local wrecking yard that has this car told me they are going to crush it within 1 WEEK!!!

This car has since been stacked on top of another mercedes. They told me they will crush it within one week.

I would hate for a car enthusiast to miss out on parts like these.

Anyone know a site where I can contact people into the old Mercedes??

What kind of mercedes is it???? Year??

Thanks
Tim

Mr_Shiftright

Oh, that's an old 220SEb sedan (tail fin model). It's really not a collectible car and most Mercedes enthusiasts wouldn't want anything to do with it; however, someone who owns one for transportation (they weren't bad old cars, and you can use them everyday) might want a few pieces (hard to say what's left on it that's worth anything).

I wouldn't be too upset about i being crushed--these cars are not much admired and even in superb restored condition would struggle to bring $5,000. It's just an old used car.

However, if you ever see an old MB coupe or convertible, cars like that would be worth your energy and good intentions!

Was nice to see the photo, though...I had the same car right after I got out of college. It served me pretty well for a couple of years. IT was white with a/c. One big problem with the 220Sbs was that they were rust buckets, especially in the headlight area and the rear quarter panels where the spare tire resided.

tdugovic

Thanks for the info.
Justs seems like a shame for a car that isn't even wrecked to be crushed.

Nothing is missing . . . the entire car is still whole.

BTW
How can I get my pic link to be clickable on this site?

Also, did you know of any mercedes specific web pages?

Thanks
Tim

Mr_Shiftright

You need to "clean up" that html....get rid of the "url" parts on front and back of it and the brackets....just start with "http and end with htm and you should see the photo.

Look at the old 220Sbs like this...it's like buying a Checker cab with Ferrari maintenance costs...back then, Mercedes was not the luxurious car it is now, especially in the 190/220 line...these were very plain, utilitarian cars, made mostly for taxi work in Europe. They really aren't worth saving unless you find one that is tip-top to begin with.

For Mercedes sites, go to www.google.com (a search engine) and type in "Mercedes Clubs"...this should give you plenty of links.

andre1969

...to see a car that complete awaiting destruction. I guess if nobody wants it, though, what else would happen, except it would rust away and become even more useless.

Somebody abandoned a Mercedes like that in a barn near my home back in the early 80's. When the county came to put a new road through, they just knocked the whole barn down on top of the car! And let the fire dept practice on the old farmhouse that was there.

I wonder what put that particular car in the junkyard in the first place...

-Andre

isellhondas

Or transmission. Not worth fixing so it got junked.

Mr_Shiftright

Exactly....if nobody cares, a car ends up in the junkyard. Obviously, nobody much cares, or at least not enough to pay for the car and haul it out of there. What good is it? Just a tired old clunker.

tdugovic

Well,
let me just say that I have posted on all the sites I frequent (mostly GM car sites) and all the responses I have gotten are disbelief that a car like this could be crushed!!!

A car like this is VERY rare in the western United states and many people are downright outraged at how ANY yard could do such a thing.

Many are asking where the car is and how much it can be purchased for.

This would make one COOL ride. pull the expensive engine/trany combo out and throw a GM 350/350 combo and you would have a cool ride.

I will still have to find some Mercedes sites and see if there is any interest by those enthusiasts.

Tim

ndance

Crush it. These cars seem plentiful enough in my area of the world (N. Calif.) and have about as much restoration potential as a 4-door Buick Skylark (I guess it's the German equivalent). I love the concept of 'throwing in' the small block. Every Mercedes swap I've seen (3 or 4 I guess) has been really a bear.

blarg1

Hey, where is this junk yard? I want to help. I want to push the button on the squisher. It looks like one of the bad guy cars in some James Bond movies.

There's one in my town, when it drives around, it leaves a thick cloud of smoke. When it is parked, it smells like gasoline. Let's squish that one too.

andre1969

...not saving old cars. If somebody really wanted that car, it would've been bought, or at least parted out. But look at it...it looks like nobody even touched it. If they can't even sell parts off of it, then how is it making them any money?

I bought a car from the junkyard once...a 1979 Chrysler Newport. I paid $250.00 for it, and it needed a rebuilt tranny...$650. And then it nickeled and dimed me until I got tired of it and bought a newer car. Usually, if a car ends up in the junkyard, it's for a good reason.

I do know a junkyard in Culpeper, VA that has held on to just about every car they've ever gotten. In the late 70's, my granddad bought a '53 DeSoto from his brother-in-law that needed some repair work up front. We found another '53 in this junkyard, and bought the hood, a fender, bumper, and all the grille "teeth". I've been back to that junkyard a couple times recently, and that '53 is still there. It doesn't look like anybody's pulled anything else off of it since we did back in 1978. Surprisingly, it hasn't rusted much in that amount of time, but it has trees growing 30 feet up around it.

This is in an area where land is cheap, so letting that car sit around is not costing him much. Still, he has about 10,000 cars, so it adds up. He recently started crushing cars around 1994, when he ran out of room and money got tight. He's crushing all of his common stuff, and leaving the rarer things like DeSotos, Edsels, etc. Some of those cars have been back in there for so long that they're mostly rust and there's nothing useful on them anymore.

Oh yeah, as for the reason why that '53 DeSoto ended up in there in the first place...it was just an old car that nobody wanted, so it was sold to the junkyard in the early 60's. In fact, when they expanded and bought more land, the car was actually driven to its final resting spot. It was just an old car that nobody wanted, and chances are if my grandfather didn't buy his '53 to fix up as a second car (which he never completed, sold, and the car now sits in Southern MD, the current owner letting it become part of the forest), then that junkyard '53 would be sitting there today: complete, but rusting, with mechanical parts that seized up and fused together long ago.

That junkyard is a real neat place to walk through, and would be a great place to film some post apocalyptic movie like a "Logan's Run" or "Planet of the Apes" remake, and personally, I hope the guy can hold off crushing his cars as long as possible. Still, he doesn't make any money off of letting me walk around and taking a nostalgia trip. I'll always try to buy something, like a hubcap for my '67 Catalina or something for the Dart.

-Andre

isellhondas

If you feel that strongly you should perhaps buy it yourself. Get ready for TREMENDOUS expense as you attempt to bring a rather lackluster car back from the grave.

Like Shifty said, those were nothing special to begin with.

As far as an engine swap...something tells me that you have NO IDEA what is involved.

Talk about a money pit...and for what?

Just my not so humble opinion.

Mr_Shiftright

I think it's really a case of "the public has spoken". If that was a 1953 Eldorado convertible or a '66 Mustang GT, you could be sure it wouldn't have spent 10 minutes in that junkyard.

An old tailfin Benz 22Sb is a homely thing, and just about everybody thinks so as far as I can tell. You see one at an auction now and then and it gets a big yawn and a NO SALE.

Sometimes a junkyard knows to do the right thing...put the poor dog to sleep...it's done it's job, and did it well, no doubt.

merckx

I'm starting to wonder if I can only admire oddball cars. Our host even owned one of these beauties,and even he can't muster much care about the old fintail. I don't think a car has to be something like an XKE or one of those mid-sixties 2+2 Maseratis to be interesting. The new Benzes have so much junk on them(Parktronic?). But the old ones-these I love! I would love to have one for a weekend car-but you don't see them often,at least where I live. The 63-64 Rambler is featured in one of the "classic" mags this month-I think these sedans are quite attractive and interesting. Or a car I can't seem to stop mentioning in these forums-the Renault Dauphine. A pristine one passed me last year-I thought it was a real pleasure to see one.

andre1969

I like seeing cars you don't see everyday, too, but I'm not going to rush out and save every one I see. For example, one car I've always loved the looks of is the 1976 Pontiac LeMans. Well, now there's one for sale about 3 miles from my house. I went and checked it out, and while I wouldn't consider it a basket case or junkyard material, it just needs a lot of work, and I have too many cars to pick up another project. The engine is a 250 inline-6, which I'm sure would be a dog in a 3800 lb car! If I had the money to spend, and a place to put it, I might buy it. And I would be sad if, a few months later, I saw it in the local junkyard just because nobody wanted it and the owner just wanted it gone. I'd probably kick myself then, because that would be an indication I probably could've gotten it for $100-200 or so. Still, I'd need to insure it, fix it when it broke, keep it somewhere, etc.

I'm sure that for every car out there, there's somebody who admires it. But what would happen if we kept all the old cars around when they got junked? Just imagine all the land we'd need, for one thing. And since those cars are just sitting around, as parts cars, slowly rusting away, we'd need to go out and mine alot more land for raw resources to build new cars.

There are plenty more cars out there that I like, but don't appeal to the general masses. There's the '79-81 Chrysler R-body, the '80-83 Cordoba/Mirada, the 1972 Impala, the 1975 LeSabre, any of the "Forward Look" era Chryslers, etc. I might cringe when I'm at the local junkyard and see one in the crusher, but that's business as usual. Actually, our local junkyard, if they get something that might be worth salvaging or holds some nostalgic interest, will hold onto it for awhile. They got a 1961 DeSoto, and held onto it for a while, and a guy that collects them ended up buying it whole. They also got a '67 Bonneville 'vert, and tried to keep it whole as long as possible. I have a '67 Catalina 'vert, and they tried to sell it to me! They also tried to sell me on the DeSoto, because they know I have a '57. I ended up passing on both, however, because I just didn't have the time or money to mess with either one.

So yeah, I still think it's kind of sad to see any relatively complete car like that Mercedes get crushed. But there are just more important things in my life to worry about. Now, if I can just get that '76 LeMans at the local car lot out of my mind! ;-)

-Andre

As for that old tailfinned Mercedes, I didn't realize they were that rare. I used to see them all the time when I was a kid. I actually like the little tailfins on them, but I believe I'm in the minority here. Still, I'm sure that if somebody wanted that car, it would be gone by now, or at least be stripped of parts.

Mr_Shiftright

They aren't rare at all....they made well over a quarter million of them and a goodly number made their way over here.

It's not a question of being "harsh"...it's just the plain old facts of the matter...some things are worthy of preservation and some aren't, based on their significance, styling innovation, technical excellence or ground-breaking marketing effects....the tail fin Mercedes, 64 Rambler and Renault Dauphine are all rather dull and uninteresting cars--just old used cars. If you called them "classics", you'd ruin the word's meaning forever. Are all ball players "Hall of Famers"? ...of course not, and so it is with cars...some are just minor leaguers who spent most of their time on the field kicking the ball.

If someone wants to patch up an old Rambler or MB 220Sb with bondo and duct tape and drive it around, hey, great...get some more use and fun out of it, but I think actually restoring cars like that says that the heart has gotten full control of the brain and is sending it strange signals.

Why restore unworthy cars when there are still many interesting and beautiful autos that need this kind of attention. Do we really want to preserve a '64 Rambler to show future generations what automotive greatness we achieved back then? Doesn't fly with me!

tdugovic

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tdugovic

so I broke the rules??

Does that mean if I dissagree with someone elses view, and I give my oppinion contrary to others views, I have broken the rules??

Was it because I called you shifty??

isellhondas said quote:
"Like Shifty said, those were nothing special to begin with"

So is that what I did wrong??

Mr_Shiftright

your posts were not deleted for your point of view at all or because you called me shifty (everybody does that). Your posts were deleted because we ask of ALL users that they not:

1. personalize their opinions or provoke other visitors (inferring they are ignorant, etc)
2. argue with the host's decisions online (you can e-mail me anytime!)
3. spam the boards with protests, etc.

These are all violations of your Terms of Use agreement. It isn't censorship. This is a private site that you are invited to participate in and that requires certain forms of courtesy.

Since the rules of decorum have broken down in this discussion, I'm going to make it read only for the time being.

thanks everyone for your participation and sorry for the interruption.

Shiftright the host