Buckley’s deals on wheels
I had heard a while ago that somebody had built a ‘tribute’ version of Gianni Agnelli’s Fiat 130 Maremma shooting brake (C&SC, November 2017), and, by way of confirmation, it has turned up for sale with a Porsche Speedster specialist in the Midlands (speedsters.com) – presumably having been chopped in against a Chesil or similar. In fairness to it, the recreation looks quite accurate – right down to the ‘American golfer’s trousers’ seat fabric – although, for nearly £100,000, I hope they will give it a clean because it looks a bit down-atheel in the pictures online.
For about the same money – albeit in US dollars, admittedly – someone has recently treated themselves to a Mercedes-benz 300TD that had been advertised on Bring a Trailer, which must surely be a new record figure for any 123-series model.
Finished in Teal (a rather attractive bluey-green), with flawless beige MB-TEX trim, it does look pretty much fresh out of the box at 57,000 miles. I’m told that 123 wagons in this sort of condition are now becoming so few and far between that keen buyers are literally waiting for aged first and second owners of TES to croak so they can capture a really good one.
It appears that the coupés are going the same way – W123 guru Mark Cosovich tells me that really superb ones can sell “over the phone” for £50,000 or more – but you won’t have to wait for me to die to buy my manual 230CE, which was given a very clean bill of health by Mark just after Christmas. Does anyone know how many five-speed manual 230CES were built with the ZF (or is it Getrag?) 717.4 gearbox? I am now on a mission to find out how rare this car is, both worldwide and in righthand-drive form.
I have to remind myself that none of the seemingly endless line of Mercedes estates I owned in the ’90s were anything like as nice even at 15 years old as the Bring a Trailer car, although at least one had as good an interior because MB-TEX is pretty much indestructible. This has reminded me of a car-buying lesson hard learned when picking up one of my last 280TES: don’t turn up by train, because you are in a very weak position when it comes to making a bid – you might not even get a lift back to the station.