Junkyard Find: 1973 Mercedes-Benz 280C
Yesterday’s Junkyard Find was a completely used-up Detroit hooptie, of mild historical interest but not really deserving to be spared the steel jaws of The Crusher. Today’s Junkyard Find, however, is a different story: a solid, completely rust-free W114 Benz with a straight body and very nice interior. Did I mention that it’s a coupe?
This is just how things are in California, where I found this staid-yet-slightly-sporty German. Just about every car in this Oakland self-service yard went through an auction process in which the minimum bid is— last time I checked— 200 bucks. That means that none of the cold-eyed car-wheeler-dealer types (nor the rose-colored-glasses-wearing car-hoarders) at this Mercedes-Benz’s auction felt willing to cough up two C-notes for the car.
These things were expensive— $9,994 list, at at time when $7,765 would get you a far plusher Cadillac Sixty Fleetwood and $8,475 could purchase a vastly sportier Jaguar XK-E V12 convertible— and they were expected to last forever. In this W114’s case, “forever” was 38 years.
My heart is pretty lump-of-coal-ish when it comes to seeing doomed cars in the junkyard, but this is one of the few that makes me shake my fist at the Car Gods and demand to know why? I may have to start shopping for W114 coupes, before the last one gets melted down to make Chinese bathroom-stall partitions.
Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.
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No one will rescue this baby cos it will cost $20,000 to restore an old Benz that will be worth (maybe) $3,000... been there, done that.
The car is actually a 1975 model year cause it has the rear fender mounted antenna and the Unleaded Fuel Only sticker on the dash. I don't know if the build plate tag was put on from a 1973 model cause the W 114 body style changes didn't happen until 9/73 and the tag says 6/73. Mercedes changed to the U.S. mandated impact bumpers in Sept. 1973 for the 1974 models.