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Saturday, November 22, 2008

So, Buying A Classic Mercedes?

It's been a while since my last post and as we all know we're not yet in the middle of a global financial crisis, we're only at the tip of it, the middle is yet to come. In light of all these, I have to work double time as well. Now, I got a bit of luxury to relax and note my observations on my favorite automotive marque.

Given this situation, one would ask "Why buy a Classic Mercedes today?". One good reply can be "Why not?". It's not about trying to satisfy one's caprice or going against the advises of the "practical" people or even enhance one's status symbol. In some cases, buying a classic Mercedes is even more rewarding than buying just another brand new vehicle which any moneyed bigot can do.

This write-up will not try to pull off a point-by-point buyer's guide, there's just so much of it in the Web. So going back to the real topic; Why buy a classic Mercedes? Classic Mercedes-Benz cars ranges from modern classics with road-going age of ten to twenty-five years, true classics that goes on for thirty years over and vintage which are mostly museum artifacts. We'll basically cover modern and true classics.

These Cars Were Designed With The Car In Mind

The purpose of the car is to move people and goods from one place to another. Recite it four times. So what is Mercedes-Benz value proposition here? A classic Mercedes-Benz has served this purpose gazillion of times and will do more in to the future. With fuel prices plunging as of this writing, a false sense of environmentalism will be sent to the backburner and it's the best time to own a classic Mercedes.

W123 in Kamuning


These Classics Are Easy To Fix


And relatively cheaper too. Mercedes-Benz classics, when handled by the right people, will go a long way, they're so tough they almost live forever. Before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, Manila is already enjoying the sight of this great German import, it has stood the test of time and crisis here longer than any Japanese, Korean or even other German brands in this part of the planet. Therefore motor shops that are specializing in servicing these classics are not really hard to find.

Red Pagoda


Nobody's Perfect

It's a fact. Whether we like it or not there will be lemons in our lives. Mercedes-Benz is no stranger to this as well specially when they started incorporating computer technology into these cars and depended heavily on it. I'm a software developer, not the best in the world, and the one dumber than me might have programmed for one of the chip that goes in one of these soon-to-be modern classics. I don't need to imagine how is it going to look like, I always see cars like this whenever I visit my mechanic and it never seems to leave the place.

Photobucket


All in all, these are just the fun and excitement of owning a classic Mercedes-Benz whether it's a W123, W201, W116 etc. these are the classics you can return to when you got sick and tired of high-technology nonsense.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

You hit the nail on the head, Jared! Those veteran, classic and "youngtimer" (neo classic) Mercs were built to last indefinitely! And while an "old car" may intimidate a lot of people, that's because they may not realize that owning, operating, maintaining and repairing a Merc that's two, three or even four decades old is generally a lot less expensive than caring for and feeding many late-model cars from Germany, Japan, Korea and North America! Why? Because modern technology has a cruel way of "fighting back": More things to break; and admittedly, those high-tech gadgets can become very, very expensive.

New cars will always be part of our motoring environment, especially since most of them were designed to be REPLACED after a number of years. You don't want to get "sentimental" with them, because of their limited lifespans. Thank you, Euro-4 Compliance, for keeping our world clean and green, and ensuring that the car manufacturers stay in business. As for grassroots gearheads like me, I'll take the simplicity, reliability, longevity, timeless CHARACTER and pure JOY OF OWNERSHIP of an older Merc over the high-priced generic new-fangled tech-laden four-wheeled time-bomb of 2009. The fuel savings of the new car will never offset the king's ransom one would have to pay to acquire it.

Three Cheers for the Senior Mercs!

Jared@Darkstar said...

Haha! Nice one Frank. Sadly there's no turning back to the old and reliable way of doing great stuff.