The legendary W124 comes home - Mercedes E250D "Oh Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz" - Some one said that a long time back. Now let me re-phrase it, "Oh Lord, won't you buy me a W124". This is how it all started.
About 5 years back, my friend Sreekanth and I were talking about a common acquaintance's 'newly' bought car. An E-class. His words - "its an old E-class, but looks more majestic than the latest E-class". Later that same day, while passing by a used-car showroom I saw a similar E-class parked there. Out of sheer curiosity, I got off my bike, walked into the showroom and inquired about the car-for-sale. Though the sales guy didn't take me seriously, for I appeared too young to own a used E-class of my own, he didn't mind me checking out the car. For the first time in my life I sat inside a W124 and got a close look at it (that time, I didn't even know it was called a W124). I remember him telling me that this version of E-class is built to be a high-mileage car. An ignorant me thought 'hmm.. a handsome number of km per litre'. I didn't know what a high-mileage car is by its real sense. I went home that day, mightily impressed by the 'old' E-class and for a few weeks from then on, my computer had a W124 as the wallpaper - pictures that I dug up by googling '1995 Mercedes Benz E-class'. Months or weeks later, the W124 was gone from my mind, and so did the wallpaper.
Growing up and getting to know more of cars, I, at one point, developed a thing for the build quality of cars. When I pass by parked cars, it wasn't rare for me tap or knock them and think hmm...thats strong. I firmly believe that growing up with a Fiat Uno played a role in this. The little Uno is built like a tank and build-quality is much much better than most cars (and most modern cars for that matter). Those days I used to look at the Boleros and think that it could do a 0-to-100km into a wall and come through it with bricks flying off, scratchless, but later, after witnessing a few examples of Boleros that had crashed into things even lighter than brick walls I realised it couldn't. So, while my fascination for supremely built cars continued, I came across W124 several times on various forums and one fine evening, I met a W124 once again in flesh. It was an E220 variant which was on display at a Mahindra First Choice showroom. Dark Blue. Gorgeus. It was shining like a diamond. It stood out on its own and caught everyone's eyes. It drove into my mind again, little did I know it was there to stay. I started reading up on W124s, watched videos, followed W124s on my bike whenever I saw one, walked into used-car showrooms whenever I see W124s there (which was rare). The W124 was growing on me. And it was during one of those showroom visits that I finally got a chance to drive a W124 for the first time. It was an E300. Automatic. I don't have a love for automatics, but I loved driving that car and I loved how new it felt even though it was way close to 200k km on its odo. It was then that I decided that, if not a Fiat, my next car would be a W124. And when I buy one, it would be a manual and it would be the simpler E250.
One of my everyday videos:
Last edited by Stratos : 27th July 2013 at 03:43.
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