Hi

I am back in the Mercedes family with the purchase of our Maine "beater" car (used for the months we are up North from Florida). Something dependable........

A platinum 98 C280 with 100K miles that we just bought -- all dealer servicing, mint condition in and out and mechanically. What a joy to drive after over 20 years of non MB ownership (due to restart of a career, children, colleges, etc.)

I am already thinking of my next one, as this one is mostly driven by my wife.

It brings back a memory of my other Mercedes rides... in the early 80's I worked in Saudi Arabia and had a Porsche 924, a 280S, and a 500SEL as company cars from the Saudi company I worked for. The 280S was fine, but the 500SEL was great. The Saudi owner of the company had traded his 500SE to the local police chief for his 500SEL, since the police chief wanted an "undercover" MB for his work (everyone local knew his black SEL). So my boss got the police chief's car, and then let me drive it for my long trips.

So here is an American guy, 33 years old, driving a car with the Ministry of Interior offical decals on the windows.... crazy...

and how I drove it -- one of my construction projects was 200 miles away, and I had to visit it weekly. About 2/3 of the trip was 6-lane freeway over rolling hills and sand dunes, and about 1/3 was 2-lane road over flat salt / sand flats. I would leave my house at 4:00 am, and pull into the jobsite about 5:45 am, in time for the 6:00 am kickoff meeting. By my calcs, that is an average of 114 MPH. I would hit up to 135 with it (about 220kph as I recall) on safer stretches of road, always wary of camels crossing (a 1/2 ton blob of flesh on 4 spindly break-away legs that allows the whole amount of flesh to slide across the hood and decapitate / crush you / your windshield). The kilometer speedo would be ticking away at 180 or so, so every 3 seconds a tenth of a kilo would go by on the odometer -- fun.

And the whole time I would be sitting in the leather seat, AC on full, 8 miles per gal of 25 cents per gallon gas, stereo on loud, left foot up on the doorsill, left arm on the door, right hand on the wheel, right foot on the fas, and the car would feel like sitting in a living room sofa.... solid, secure, safe. Never had such a ride, not even in my 944 doing 130.

I just love the engineerinng ..... the more I drive my C280, the more I want another one....

Best to you all...

Bob

 

Welcome back to the family Bob! It's always nice to hear MB stories.

Happy Motoring!![sm=gears.gif]

 

I can just see you reminiscing! Great story, it appears you have the fondest memories of your driving experiences in that automobile. Hope that you're able to re-capture, repeat, or re-experience those driving evolutions, of course with safety being a primary consideration. [8D]

Welcome back.