I completely forgot to update things here...oops! Let's catch you up on things. This is going to be a bit of a long one.
So I went to take a look at that Mercedes.
Turns out that unlike the vast majority of the limos you see out there which were standard cars converted by a third party, these were actually factory built by Mercedes. V123 being the model designation for this beastie.
Which means they are far better built than most, and are actually reasonably sensible in the length department, at 5.5 metres - about 10cm longer than a Rolls Royce Silver Shadow/Spirit. So still a long old car, but not unusably so. My camper for comparison is a shade over 6.5 metres long. So it's perfectly usable.
My intention here was simple: To give the seller an honest appraisal of the car and see if I could recommend to them best what to do with it. My interest in taking the car on as a project was pretty much zero.
First reaction as I pulled up: "Oh dear, she's crispy..." Thoughts of suggesting that she's probably doomed to be a parts donor were pretty prominent at that point.
Though walking around I became a bit less pessimistic.
There is plenty of grot. The most visible of which as you walk up to the car is probably this bit on the sill by the rear jacking point - the hole there I poked in it.
The more concerning bit however is here in the windscreen scuttle panel. Especially as something these cars are renowned for rust wise is rotting through the bulkhead, which is an absolute pig of a job to fix properly. So this is rather concerning.
I was rather apprehensive to see what was left of the bulkhead, and was kind of expecting to find myself peering straight through at the back of the dash.
Colour me surprised! Absolutely nothing crunchy in there. Nearside had some crusty seam sealer there but was similarly solid.
It's way better than my previous S123 in this area! That discovery lifted my spirits a bit and started the spark of a glimmer of hope that this could just maybe be saved.
So, where else did I find rust? "Usual suspects" is probably a pretty quick summary. Though surprisingly the only crusty wheel arch really is the nearside rear. Again, better than the S123.
Probably the most difficult to repair rust is that bit they're prone to going at the base of the B pillars. This has blown out on both sides.
While it looks quite dramatic, it's not the worst repair to do in the world I reckon. Big question for me is how much of the inner sill there has also dissolved? I initially thought that repair panels for this area were available, but this turned out to be Google completely ignoring the words "Mercedes W123" in my search string and showing me B pillar repair panels for all manner of other cars...I was three pages in before Mercedes even made an appearance. Thanks for nothing you useless piece of technology.
There is some rust on both of the inner wing tops which will need sorting. At least access isn't a problem for this. I couldn't poke any holes here by hand (I didn't have any tools with me) though I suspect a toffee hammer would have me seeing wheel through here.
Both sides are pretty much identical.
I think it shows I've been messing with old cars for a few years now in that my reaction to the rust there was basically just "Shrug, moving on..."
In the same vicinity, the battery tray isn't exactly stellar either, but isn't imminently about to fall apart so should be fine to be saved.
Underneath the chassis rails, floorpan and the sills actually all looks surprisingly fresh. Only floorpan type area I immediately spotted needing repair was the bottom of the spare wheel well, which won't be a hard repair.
Is that even an MOT issue? Obviously it would be sorted long term, but my brain is kinda in triage mode at this stage.
I did note this slightly odd looking bit behind the offside rear wheel, though it seemed 100% solid. Strange construction method or historic repair?
Despite the hole in the offside sill the nearside one looked to be in far better shape. Bit hard to see just now though as the car is parked quite close to a fence on that side.
I was initially a bit worried by a bit of brightwork sitting askew on the rear pillar. Was worried I'd find a hole there, turns out it's the fastener that has failed though which is far better. Though the surface rust obviously needs catching ASAP.
The engine bay is a bit grubby but is almost miraculously free of bodgery. The only thing I could spot off the bat was a couple of wires hooked up to an auxiliary cooling fan.
The biggest single "wow" moment however happened when I pulled off the oil filler cap and took a peek in there... especially bearing in mind the debacle with my sludged up S123.
How clean is that? The oil itself is due a change and smells a bit fuelly but I'm perfectly happy to leave it in there for testing. Looking in the radiator revealed spotlessly clean green coolant spot on the right level, likewise the ATF was pristine clear blood red. Mechanically this car has obviously been very well looked after. I know 115K miles is normally nothing to these cars, but this has obviously been looked after. There's even still pressure in the air conditioning system, though it will no doubt want a recharge. Which will be complicated as I'm sure this will still be running R22 (or maybe even R12?) so a conversion to R123a will need to be kept in mind.
I decided at that point there was no reason not to see if she would crank and build oil pressure. I was successful in making the engine move by hauling on one of the pulleys so it definitely wasn't stuck. The battery is obviously stone dead (the car has been sitting since 2016), so I grabbed the jump leads and hooked up the Caddy. Starter immediately sprang to life and she span over just fine.
...Then after about ten seconds the engine only went and started!
Seven years, I never even looked at the ignition system, carb, or so much as touched the accelerator pedal, and she just rumbled into life.
I killed the engine after about ten seconds as I could see fuel peeing out of a line that had shrunk to the extent it had pulled off the carb (looks like it goes to the accelerator pump). I hadn't even considered that it could start so hadn't got as far as looking at that. Didn't expect there to be anything in the tank to be honest anyway!
Aside from it being very obvious that there was a major exhaust leak up front I didn't hear any unpleasant noises, even when the engine first fired. Oil pressure immediately pinged up off scale as you'd expect. I didn't expect otherwise but it was nice to see.
The carb deserves a mention...not least for the fact it was still delivering fuel after seven years slumber. It's also flipping huge! It's a stinking great four barrel beast that's more the sort of size I'm used to seeing on big American V8s, looks a bit lost on this 2.5 litre six. A bit of research shows it to be a Solex 4A1, for which service kits are thankfully readily available. That's a novelty for me!
The exhaust leak it turns out is because there's several inches of one of the downpipes missing where it joins to the front section proper. I think it's a stock manifold and downpipe, then a bespoke stainless system takes over after a few feet.
The bodywork on this car panel wise is actually in surprisingly good shape. I've seen quite a few of these go around the rear window. No such issues here.
Likewise around the fuel filler is spotless. Well no, it's filthy...but you get what I mean.
There's an interesting fitment on the nearside front wing you don't see on many cars too.
You know what that is? It's a holder for a flag pole!
I didn't take photos, but I'm sure all of the doors were pretty much perfect. Likewise all of the brightwork is present and in good shape, including the wheel trims. This is important as that's the sort of thing which is really pricy. The cost of sorting that on my S123 was one of the things which I found a bit off-putting as quite a lot of the trim on that was in rough shape.
Here however is the really, really sad bit of the story. Can you see the problem here?
No, not that it's been sitting with the handbrake on for seven years...though that is sad to see.
Look a bit closer.
Yep. Some lowlife broke into and stole this car, their intention being to strip it for parts. Apparently the steering lock gave them a run for their money.
Thankfully though the car was recovered before they had got far with stripping it. Only thing they had done was unbolting the forward row of seats in the back, and I suspect starting to cut the exhaust off - I reckon that's where the missing chunk of downpipe went, they were preparing to pull the stainless off.
Everything thankfully is still there, just needs bolting back together. Even more thankfully, the owner somehow managed to find a replacement for the V123 specific rear window the thieves broke in through.
I think the recent storms finished off the film that was covering the broken window as there was only a tiny bit of water in the footwell and there's no evidence really of any long term damp, or animals using it as a home from home. Goes without saying that if nothing else I'll be installing the replacement window for them to get the car properly weatherproof again.
It's a crying shame they've done that much damage to the dash as the interior other than that is (aside from needing a good clean) pretty much immaculate. It's absolutely blindingly obvious this has never been worked massively hard as a wedding car or anything like that.
Really wonderful to see the original radio still there.
The evidence all supports the low mileage shown. Oh, yeah...they managed to also smash the face of the instrument panel while trying to break the steering lock.
Great, something else for the list.
-- -- --
So all in all the car is a bit of a mixed bag. It's a lot less knackered than I initially thought it was...but in the same breath she does need a lot of work. The areas of rust I've found all seem to be pretty isolated and are all fixable. However it's still probably up there in the hundreds of hours worth of work.
At the end of the day, even fully restored to minty fresh condition I don't imagine this would be worth more than about 70% of that of an equivalent standard saloon as it is always going to appeal to a smaller audience. My gut feeling is that fully sorted this is a five grand car. If you were patient the parts can't be worth far off that, especially if the drivetrain is as fresh as it seems. Given that the parts needed to recommission and repair the issues I know of is probably going to run to somewhere around £2500, plus all the labour, she really doesn't make sense as a restoration candidate really if you're interested in trying to make any money. Especially as by the time you've got the car up and running *and* fettled everything including cosmetics you usually end up having doubled your estimated spend I find!
Of course that simply makes me want to do everything possible to save it all the more. I'm a sucker for no hopers and trying to give cars which have fallen on hard times a second chance. See exhibit A...
In the same breath, she does have quite a few things going for her. Not being a clapped out ex wedding car probably sets it out compared to the vast majority of V123s you're likely to see on the market these days. Also I know why this car came off the road - due to the break-in and the damage to the dash/ignition switch, rather than being parked up due to some unknown mechanical failure.
I'm actually now getting quite tempted. Especially looking at the layout and thinking about it a bit more. It could actually be a genuinely useful car for our family. Can't think of a more comfortable way to travel for four adults, luggage AND if we need to, the dogs. That's always been an or between them or luggage.
I haven't made a decision yet. I will be revisiting the car on Friday with a few tools and a plan.
Tasks:
[] Install the replacement nearside rear window.
[] Batter all of the suspect areas with a hammer and see how much of the car I make disappear.
[] Replace the knackered fuel line which is leaking in the engine bay.
[] Dump a couple of gallons of fresh fuel in the tank.
[] Try to get her up and running for more than thirty seconds, so I can do a check over and find out what's working or isn't.
[] Confirm if we have drive, and if the handbrake will release...and if so if we have any semblance of brakes.
[] If yes, can we move it away from the fence to get a better look at the nearside.
[] Stick some air in the tyres.
Then I'll make a decision out of three possible ways forward.
1. I make a recommendation to the current owner and provide them with a written report of my findings.
2. I take it on - but not as a full restoration. I'd clean it up, properly document everything, possibly get an actual MOT fail certificate with a view to selling it on as a project.
3. I completely turn my plans for this year on their head and take on a five and a half metre long money pit of a project.
A LOT of this will depend on two things: If the rust has really spread further than I expect it to (bearing in mind I do have prior experience in this department so I'm fully expecting it to be a lot worse than it looks). Secondly will be what the current owner wants for it...if the answer to either of these questions isn't what we're after I'll definitely be out.
If I don't end up with this one it's definitely a model which has now made it onto my radar for the future. To be honest if I was spending five grand on one of these I'd rather do this one up than on a very shiny but clapped out ex-wedding car.
Whatever the decision is though it'll be made on Friday (or shortly following) after I've had a chance to look into it a bit more deeply. Watch this space I guess!
