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Final Parking Space: 1982 Mercedes-Benz 300D with 400K Miles
Quick, what car has earned the strongest worldwide reputation for dependability and longevity since Karl Benz built Car Number One in 1885? A global poll would likely find the Patent-Motorwagen’s great-great-great-grandchild, the 1975–1986 Mercedes-Benz diesel-engined W123, coming out on top. Here’s one of those cars, a well-traveled Stuttgart oil-burner that now resides in a boneyard located between Cheyenne and Denver.

Iron Ridge Auto & Metal is located on the former site of the legendary Martin Supply in Windsor, Colorado, which was a time-capsule boneyard packed with inventory that had been in place since the 1940s. Family-owned Andersen’s Sales & Salvage bought the land in 2021, cleared out the cacti and rattlesnake nests, and added it to their Front Range empire of self-service yards that includes the original Andersen’s in Greeley plus Cheyenne Auto & Metal just over the state line in Wyoming.

Martin Supply was a chaotic, hazardous place you had to clamber around and through like a mountain goat (visitors were wise to update their tetanus shots before visiting), and Andersen’s has done a fine job of making the vehicles accessible without injury (plus their prices are much better than the corporate yards down in Denver). Still, I miss the ancient Detroit carcasses I’d visit just to shoot with 125-year-old film cameras.

The W123 was one of the cars in the lineage that eventually became known as the Mercedes-Benz E-Class; its predecessor was the W114/W115 and its successor was the W124. It was available from the factory in sedan, wagon, and coupe form.

The W123 with naturally-aspirated four-cylinder diesel engine became famous as the European and African taxi for decades. What did James May choose as his ride for the Top Gear Botswana Adventure? A late-production W123 four-banger, though one with gasoline power.

In the United States, the W123 was available only with diesel power for the 1981 through 1985 model years (so as to avoid running afoul of CAFE regulations). This car is the most expensive W123 sedan available here for 1982: the 300D, with an MSRP of $29,756. That’s about $99,587 after inflation. I got my first driver’s license in 1982, and my wheels cost me $29,706 less than this car’s list price.

American Mercedes-Benz shoppers in 1982 found that the 240D version of the W123 was the very cheapest new model in their local showroom; that very reliable, very fuel-efficient… and extremely slow machine had a sticker price starting at $21,282 ($71,227 in today’s money).

The 240D’s naturally aspirated oil burner generated a mere 67 horsepower and 97 pound-feet, which was miserable for a 3130-pound car even by the generous standards of the Malaise Era. The U.S.-market 300D, however, got a beefy OM617 turbodiesel straight-five, which made a respectable-for-the-time 120 horsepower and 170 pound-feet.

This car earned an EPA combined fuel economy rating of 27 miles per gallon, which was exceptionally good for a luxury car scaling in at 3585 pounds. At that time, diesel fuel was much cheaper in the United States than gasoline (and usually available when geopolitical events in the Middle East caused gasoline shortages), which is the main reason GM pushed its ill-fated diesel cars with such optimism.

The U.S.-market 240D for 1982 had a four-on-the-floor manual as its base transmission, but the 300D sold here came with a mandatory four-speed automatic.

This car has been picked over hard by junkyard shoppers, but you can still see some remnants of its once-opulent interior.

It served its owners well during its career, averaging more than 9300 miles for each of its 43 years. I’ve documented quite a few extreme-high-mile Mercedes-Benz diesel W123s and W126s in car graveyards over the years, and this one isn’t even the top 300D on the current Murilee Martin Junkyard Odometer Standings. It’s in third place, after an ’82 sedan with 417,046 miles and an ’85 sedan that traversed 411,448 miles.

In fact, the highest-mile Mercedes-Benz I’ve documented in a junkyard was neither a diesel nor a W123. It was a W201 proto-C-Class with a gasoline-burning straight-four engine. Those Stuttgarters built good cars during the 1980s!

Today’s 300D was also surpassed in total miles driven by a pair of diesel W126s proto-S-Classes I’ve run across in boneyards: a 1981 300 SD sedan with 572,129 miles and a 1985 300 SD sedan with 535,971 miles. All of them are blown away by the one-owner 1996 Toyota Avalon I found in a South Carolina yard last year with a Carfax-documented 949,863 miles on the clock; in my heart of hearts, I think that the members of the extended 1990s Toyota Camry/Lexus ES family will prove in the long run to be the high-mileage kings of the internal-combustion era.

Still plenty of good parts on this machine at the end of its road.
Just the car for banked-oval escapades. If you were a rakish sort of diesel Mercedes-Benz buyer in 1982, you bought the 300CD coupe.
I hope Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong got paid well by Daimler AG for the use of their song in this promotional video (which borrows from the better-known Temptations cover).
As you’d expect, the 240D’s American commercials emphasized fuel economy.





























I think that the reason these haven’t become that collectible is because they were so reliable they stayed in use for years after cars of the same age died. You still see them in everyday use and until that changes they aren’t going to be discovered.
I’ve known two collectors over the years who were absolutely fanatical about these Diesel Mercedes sedans and Diesel Rabbits
As an owner of an ’86 w126 diesel with 317k miles, I can confirm the 80s Mercedes are spectacular. The son of the man I bought it from has an ’82 with somewhere in the 250k mile range still going strong. Maybe more.
Mine lives a pampered life these days. But a road trip last summer to Oblivion (Canadian 80s/90s themed car show) saw me average 29.7MPG over 550 miles.
I probably could’ve made it the last 100 miles home on the tank, but I would’ve been coasting into the driveway.
The only downside was the long full-throttle pulls on the steep hills of cottage country, doing my best to maintain speed with the stock but mighty OM603 pushing taller gearing from a gas version in a 4000lb car. With the A/C on, no less!
I had a friend who lived in Greeley, Colorado. Didn’t know there was a boneyard near his area. That car doesn’t look bad but definitely picked at for parts.
My 1982 240D manual was a tank. Acquired in 1997 with around 180,000 km for under $5,000, it was still a great-looking car and seemed both luxurious and prestigious (enough) at fifteen years old. It served us well on many long trips, started (plugged in, of course) down to – 25C or so with the right oil, and caused relatively few problems except being a bit slow climbing over the high passes on the Coquihalla highway. But eventually, we wanted to tow an older camping trailer, which it could not do. It went first to a friend, who babied it, and when he left the province, to my brother, who drove it for years more until it was totalled in the late 2000s by a forklift truck that opened up the rear door and quarter like a tin can — which would have been more expensive to repair than it was technically worth. However, he got more than book value based on its condition and the difficulty of replacing it with a vehicle of similar quality. What a great car! I also have fond memories of my grandfather’s beautiful 1985 300TD wagon, and of a 1981 300D sedan we had much later (in the 2010s) until our trusted mechanic retired and parts and maintenance became too onerous in that boomtown city.