1985 Mercedes Benz W123 230E - The Taxi

Great work. Especially on the seat. Well done this looks spot on!

Many years ago I bought a £10 EBay special gaiter for my Toyota MR2 and it was rubbish. I ended up binning it.

However, I’ve taken your advice and bought a bespoke for a W124 gaiter from EBay today. It’s not a huge investment and I might be pleasantly surprised. Watch this space.

Despite my previous efforts, the original gear stick gaiter was not looking its best.



A new leather gaiter, sourced via EBay, including p&p, cost me all of £5. I was apprehensive as to its quality, however I am pleased to say that the leather is nice and soft and the dimensions match the original part.

The advice offered in a YouTube video that shows how to remove the gaiter is worthless. The man in the film is working on a knackered and modified W124, nothing like my pride and joy. To get the old gaiter off, I had to destroy it. There was no going back!



To get from this stage to the completion took me over an hour, mostly due to Mercedes Benz's tight part fitment tolerances.

However, with the new gaiter installed, the interior is now looking near mint.

Great looking interior. I love the dark blue colour, suits w124 very well.

Slight change of topic.

I've had my W123 230E for over ten years now. When I bought it, it was in reasonable condition and had 90k miles on the clock with no history whatsoever. During my ownership I've added approx 45k miles, which included two trips across Europe to Poland and back and a few hops down to the south coast. For the past six years it has been a total garage queen and the subject of a minor rolling restoration. Over the years its had a new rear scuttle panel, a pair of new rear wheel arches and a repair panel welded to the bottom of the offside front wing. I've also tidied up the engine bay as the dusty and rusty original bay was letting the car down at the few shows that I attended over the years.

This morning I dragged the 230E out of the garage to give it a quick hoover and wipe over. My iPhone camera is rubbish as the car appears almost white in the photos, which it isn't. The colour is a light ivory, known as hellelfenbein in German, the same as German taxis.

Still looking good after 35 years.

































Rain stopped play and the 230E went back into hibernation.



Meanwhile in the adjoining garage the 200E was taking a nap.

On Tuesday afternoon I had to meet with a client in Henley-On-Thames. I parked the 200E in a quiet side street, within a designated parking bay. A scaffolder's van was parked on the corner of the road and three monkeys were working on the back of the building next to where I parked. I was not expecting any trouble. When I returned to the 200E half an hour later, I immediately noticed impact damage to the rear of the 200E. The three monkeys had disappeared but their van had not moved. I looked around for any sign of the three monkeys but they were hiding properly, possibly looking at me from behind a curtain. I had to move on and meet with another client and had no time to investigate the incident. Realistically, what could I do? The three monkeys knew that they did wrong, hence they did not leave a note and hid away. If I found them and accused them of causing damage to my car I would have at best been told where to go or at worst retreated without a full complement of front teeth.







Fortunately, the damage was quite localised. Unfortunately, the dent was quite deep and cracked the paint.

Next morning this happened - 140k miles!



I've had a little time to repair the damaged rear panel. I sanded down the cracked paint, knocked the dent out from the inside and smoothed the area with a skim of filler.



Next came my professional masking off.





I still had half a can of correct Arctic White paint and the repair turned out ok. Over the weekend I will flatten the new paint with 1500 grade paper and give it a polish. Fortunately, I had all the necessary sundries and the repair took less than an hour. Karma will sort out the three monkeys.



And today I took the 200E for an MoT. Good news, it sailed through and it's good for another year. The previous MoT was valid until mid May and the 200E was booked in for a test on the 20th April 2020, however with all the Coronavirus nonsense that is going on, I figured it would be best to have the 200E tested and sorted asap rather than hanging around and finding myself with a car out of test.

Still two of my favourite cars on here but I am a sucker for a standard 80s and 90s Benz. Hard lines on the dent but at least you were able to sort it easily enough. Same thing happened to my Rover 75 this week someone rammed it up the rear end and drove off. Really annoying.

Thanks buddy.

I am currently leasing a Hyundai Tucson as a daily runabout. The lease expires in January 21 and rather than getting another new car, I am considering buying a six cylinder petrol W124 or a W210 for daily duties. If all goes well, there will be three old Mercs in my fleet.

Hopefully another old school will cost less to run than the lease charges. Good luck with finding a W210. I haven't seen one in ages but then most have dissolved in Northern Ireland's damp climate.