The venerable indestructible Mercedes station wagon can be bought almost unused after the 1st owner, it costs a fortune due to a cosmetic defect

If you’re after a car that’s almost guaranteed to outlive you and, quite possibly, your offspring, this is a pretty safe bet. Given its condition and history, it’s practically worth a fortune, helped by an insignificant cosmetic defect.

If there was a college for car dealership salesmen, one of the subjects would undoubtedly be “Effectively Faking the Fictitious Origin of the Cars Offered for the Purpose of Higher and Faster Sales”. And on it, at the very first seminar, something would be discussed about a pensioner barely driving out as the first owner of a garaged car in a decade. Sometimes you get the feeling that no one else even puts cars in bazaars, right? Nevertheless, it happens that just such a car actually appears on sale, and you can see one of them in the photos below.

It is the now legendary first generation Mercedes C with the internal designation W202, in this case actually more like S202, as it is a station wagon. The car has been owned by the first and only owner from the beginning until today, and that’s pretty much all he’s done with it. It was a German pensioner who bought the car in February 1999 and remained registered as the sole owner in the technical license until this spring. However, he practically did not drive the car – in more than 25 years of ownership, he “swept” 21,202 km with it and not even a tap more.

So we are talking about a car that has driven less than 1,000 km per year, which is really almost like nothing. The rest of the time it stayed garaged and had a Mercedes service every few years. This is a recipe for a time machine, and according to the owner, he cooked almost without a mistake – the car looks like new, there is no point in doubting the words of today’s seller. The original paint without faded spots could still be covered, but look at the interior. It is really perfectly new, not even the rays of the sun have affected it, let alone the driver’s seat or limbs. The design of the interior reeks of the 90s, but that’s part of the game.

The only defect is damage to the roof from hail, but the car doesn’t run on that after all (and it’s not something that can’t be fixed). Apart from that, it is an almost new car without corrosion, which tempts you to reawaken the 122 hp 1.8-liter four-cylinder connected to the automatic transmission. This is a fairly common choice for a “retirement” car, even thanks to this combination the car is fully functional and completely unused. And it has a new German MOT.

It’s certainly a wonderful thing, a bazaar treasure of sorts that anyone would easily offer in the high hundreds of thousands. But the seller is keeping his head down, so even because of the damage to the roof, he is making it available for only 5,640 Euros, i.e. about 141,000 CZK. It’s really not much for an ordinary Mercedes C-class, but it’s in absolutely extraordinary condition. The W202 still pays for an almost indestructible, “overdeveloped” car that doesn’t have to throw away even 1 million kilometers. So this one can probably drive another 979 thousand km before something big goes wrong. For such a time machine, many people would have their knee drilled.

This is what a car that hasn’t been properly driven looks like to this day after a man who drove it for only 21,000 km in 25 years. It is not expensive for its uniqueness. Photo: Nico, published with permission

Source: Mercedes-Benz Mercedes Benz W202 Elegance 21,000Km |Erst…@mobile.de

Peter Miller

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