I drive Bellas (from www.belbenz.com) newly acquired 1988 Mercedes-Benz 420se in this video. Unbelievable this car was priced at R132k in 1988, a rumble when a brand new Land Cruiser Pick-up could be had for just R43k.
They weren't cheap cars at all back then and you could get a higher spec BMW (with a bigger engine) for the same price. Where are those BM's today though?
You missed the best part of that car... it pulls away in second gear under normal driving conditions... BUT floor it hard from a standstill and it will drop down to first gear, lift the nose by 2 inches, and kick you in the back😀 V8 W126s are some of the most awesome cars EVER.
Now thats a proper merc. Safest car in the world at the time and probably still is. Never proven that an airbag has saved anyones life, but sure has injured people. Good solid strong engineering is whats required. Nice to see 1 that has been so well looked after. If that was myne 15' Bundts would be my style on it. Entertaining video, but you could have red lined it at least once for us.😂
My first time now to see your channel ❤. Awesome. Looking at the old Mercedes brings back memories. My father used to work for Mercedes in East London factory in 1980. It was then called C.D.A.
Nice ride along thanks! At some point in time I owned a silver 380SE w V8 engine, sunroof & wooden steering wheel - it was awesome... a UFO on 4 wheels
As years go by these become more and more appealing. 7:08, it seems a little low at the rear (particularly noticeable in the opening clip), possibly due to the self-levelling being deactivated. Get it going, it will improve the ride quality and stance substantially.
The self-leveling rear suspension in a w126 is inactive unless the car is loaded and makes no difference to ride quality, it merely serves to level the car. Having had a quick look at this particular car, it seems like the system was deactivated but the coils weren’t changed at the same time which would account for the lower ride. I believe Bella will be replacing the coils with a set out of a non self-leveling w126 which will resolve the right hight issue.
My dreamcar when i was a kid. Now i have one. 420SE from 1988. Seems they didn't sell the performance upgraded engines in south africa. This car doesn't have the second air intake like mine. How did they sell these 126 up until 1993? Here they discontinued the production in 1991 and replaced it with the W140. Or were they build there? Would be interested to know more about that.
Yes we only had the 160kw version that ran between the discontinuation of the 380se and the launch of the 500se. The w126 was manufactured her in South Africa and production only ended in 1993 here.
Thank you for watching, much appreciated! I'd suggest a good old school local mechanic. They aren't hard to work on and most parts are still freely available. It just stumps those mechanics that are over dependent on their diagnostic machines.
Nice car, but the interior noises are really horrible for such a otherwise very silent car. That is the most annoying about a w126 and most of them have it to some degree.
@@oldmercguy thanks my bosses at time must have had 300 se the one guy use to put all sorts stuff in the boot including bags of cement wheel barrows my ithr boss before these cars had what i sermise was a big v8 from the 70s use to ho up to Swaziland regulary company was doing a job there one of the truck drivers broke down simewhere passed matubatuba when he heard this growl coming saw a blue shape it was the boss took awhike fir him to slow down and turn around
