There was a time in the 70 s and 80 s in South Africa 🇿🇦 when waiting lists on Benz were 2 years long. These were on cars made in S Africa . As a result the used cars market for Benz was booming. In cases used Benz traded for more than new . The S Class 126 was one of these cases .
It was interesting hearing you tell the grey market story! This mostly happened in the middle 1980s. We bought brand new 300D 123s for $11,000 USD. It was the best time of my life, the true wild wild west. The dollar bought as high as 3.45 Dmark. I miss those days. (Yes it is me)
In 86 BMW corporate headquarters sent a letter to all the US dealerships stating they were not going to be supplying any more spare parts that were specific to the gray market cars. They were just plain fed up with it. I remember a family friend who had a gray market 535is, and was pretty friendly with the dealer and showed my dad a copy of the letter. We lived near Sindelfingen in the late 70s and had friends come over and stay with us and go road tripping in their new Benzes to get the mileage accumulated to bring them in as "used" cars.
Pierre you are right on the money. The rule was one EPA Exempt car in a lifetime. The car had to be at least 5 years old though. In the spring of 1985 when I was 17 finishing my junior year in high school my father bought a 1980 Porsche 911SC Euro Spec from a friend of his who was importing gray market cars. It had about 60,000 kilometers on it and cost only $11,000.00 The exchange rate at the time was 3.3 German Marks per US Dollar. I think it hit a low of around 1.8 German Marks per dollar when it was replace by the Euro. The advantage for me was that it was cheap enough so that my father let me drive it anytime I wanted. A 1980 US Spec 911SC easily would of cost between $20,000 and $25,000 dollars. Luckily I learned how to drive a standard transmission on a VW Rabbit the prior year. He also had 3 other Gray Market cars. 1981 BMW 745i, 1984 Porsche 911 Carrera, and a 1985 Porsche 911 Turbo or 930 as it was sometimes called. Mercedes did it to themselves when the W126 came out in 1981. They should of offered a 500SEL and a 280SE for those that wanted a less expensive model and did not want a diesel. Then the 84/85 500SEL and 500SEC only had about 184hp where the 86-91 560 had 238 I believe.
Used to have an 85 230E (123), quite the gutless wonder but still a fun car. Manual windows and sunroof, cloth seats. Had no problems with the MB dealer servicing the car, but mostly dealt with independents.
Just got a Euro ‘85 190e 2.3-16. Had to drive from LA to Vegas to get it registered thanks to the joke they call CARB, when there’s dudes going 35 mph on the freeway with an overloaded bed and blowing blue smoke as they burn oil all the way.
FYI - There were a LOT more than 3 shops doing copliance work, and many of those were reputable and produced cars that were legitimate. But the biggest in the country was Trend in California. Their DOT work was exceptional and could almost pass for factory...but they fiddled the machinery to p[roduce the EPA numbers they needed, and the cars were NEVER even close to compliance. Trend's founder, Albert Mardekian, went to prison for this, in a plea deal that kept his nephew (who had devised the scheme) out of prison. The thing was that the quality of work from these independent operators was wildly varying. I was in the exotic car business at the time, and more than once we had grey market Ferraris come in with burning /overheating issues from the heat generated by the catalytic converters, which were almost never properly heat-shielded. Afbout 1986, the bloom fell from the rose, and those buyers who had thought themselves very astute for saving tons of money found that they owned cars with mechanical problems, no warranties, and virtually no resale market. In most cases, it could not have happened tomore deserving guys!
The grey market situation also happened in Egypt in the 80s. My dad's '79 w123 230 was euro import from Belgium. I know it was even more egregious than the US was where any trader could go to Europe and buy 6 or 7 cars of the same model which were mostly either Peugeots and Mercedes especially since the w123 was never sold new in Egypt so every single w123 you see here all of the were grey market except government vehicles which were specially ordered. But the government after 85-86 after being pressured by the local dealers overnight outlawed all used cars import as in all of them except those who were no older than one year.
Pierre, one reason the grey market died (after I imported and EPA federalized 5 cars) was that EPA closed the compliance testing centers in late '85 or early '86 and only would accept type certification testing (10-25 car batches) and guys like me could no longer get one at a time cars tested.
Was that requirement due to the Motor Vehicle Safety Compliance Act being phased in? It does seem that congress deliberately made it hard to federalize Grey market imports by passing that Act.
My father and grandfather were (sarcasm alert) "drug dealers" pharmacists. Grandpa always had a big Benz '63 220SE, '71 280SEL, and his last car was the first turbodiesel delivered in the Midwest in February '79. I remember my father considered a gray market 200D in '84 when the 240D was no longer available. He "settled"😂 for an '85 300CD.
cloth seats , manual windows / heater a/c , stick shift. The only issues , a lot of people got robbed , because the DOT work was not done right .Also the MB dealers refused to work on gray market cars , so the independents where it . Also the interesting auxiliary gasoline powered heater under the hood .
This was a huge headache for Leo Levine and MBNA. I recall Leo telling me that he was one of the driving forces behind making the importation laws more stringent. Still, he could never deny how much better the ROW gasoline drivetrain offerings were.
Can you sir please make a video, listing the best mercedes diesel eghines of '80's and '90's. And whats your opinion compared with diesel toyota engines.
I own one W124 300e (amg) 1990 model, and its quite funny in one way, it`s made in Finland, all the papers are saying that anyway, it have new id number as finnish made and proved, by our traficom system. Very nice car to drive, lower than factory, and even steering is bit faster, and more responsive. And if anyone think those little spoilers are only for look, are wrong in that, they really start to work after you go faster than 170km/hour and really sucks it down to pavement, stabilaiting that car. It`s first generation AMG of W124 style, frontspoiler is 8cm (just over 3")from ground, it`s minimum here in Finland. Needs lots of more power thow, working on it, nonturbo, double, with turbo tripple, from original, havent decided yet, money is allways last thing talking.
