Junkyard Find: 1973 Mercedes-Benz 220
Most of the time, I don’t photograph junkyard-dwelling Mercedes-Benzes unless they’re coupes, SLs, or really old, but today’s W115 sedan was just so complete that I had to shoot it.
A car like this just isn’t worth enough to warrant restoration, especially when the interior smells like a genetically-engineered mildew experiment gone terribly awry (it takes a serious strain of mildew to thrive in Denver’s single-digit humidity).
It’s not very rusty, although the wheelwells probably have a bit of an oxidation party going on.
With just 103 horses from the 2.2-liter four-cylinder, this fairly substantial car wasn’t going to be quick.
Especially once the York air conditioning kicked in.
Still, these cars were built when Mercedes-Benz obliterated all comers in the build-quality competition, and they deserve our respect.
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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Aww a "Strich Acht" (/8) as my German mates called them! Haven't seen one for years, nostalgie. Those things were unstoppable a friend was living in an ex taxi 240d with inter galactic mileage after his life went to pieces and he never maintained it, it leaked so much that it needed topping up with every fluid known to man each morning, needed to be push started and huge rust holes in the floor but: IT WOULD NOT DIE. Zombie car. The build quality was just legendary although the Germans reckoned the rot set in, literally, with this model, as Benz started using inferior quality recycled steel as opposed to the virgin steel they had previousely, hence they rusted more than they should. Something about carbon content apparently, (East German vehicles were also rust prone due to the poor composition of the crap steel I was told).
I have a soft spot for these because my grandfather had the same model in white but with the same interior as shown above. His lasted to well somewhere in 250k then he sold it. I still see a white benz around where he lives from time to time.