Junkyard Find: 1971 Mercedes-Benz 250C
Mercedes-Benz W114s lasted forever and held their value pretty well, which means that plenty of them still show up in self-service yards nearly 15 years into the 21st century (though most of the time I skip photographing the sedans). So far in this series, we’ve seen this ’73 280CE, this ’73 220, this ’73 280CE, and this ’74 280C, and now I’ve found this coupe in Denver.
The sun has not been kind to this car’s vinyl roof.
The interior has been picked over deeply, to the extent that this may have been a parts car that was scrapped after all the useful stuff was gone.
No shortage of these engines in wrecking yards, so it’s unlikely that this one will be rescued from The Crusher’s jaws.
For some reason, 95% of 1960s and 1970s Mercedes-Benz cars in self-service wrecking yards have the model-number emblems removed. Are they worth big money, or just favored garage decorations?
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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There's a pretty good market on ebay for emblems, and you can load your pockets with the smaller ones like this at the self-service junkyard and walk out without getting caught.
Is that a green Fintail Merc I spy behind it?