A Collector Car Autopsy

I have never lost as much money as I did with our 1972 Mercedes-Benz 250C.

In August 2022, I paid $18k for the car. A little over two years later, I had it placed on Bring a Trailer by my friend Matt Crandall, super-seller 911r. It was bid to only $17,800.

In the meantime, I had put roughly $27k into the car for repairs and improvements. When I eventually sold it after the auction, I did get a few thousand more for the car than the high bid, but that got eaten up in fees. My net was — surprise! — $17,500.

My total financial loss on the two years of ownership wound up being $27,434.93.

An initial blunder

As I have come to learn, my mistake was simple. I didn’t understand the limitations of the potential upside of the market and I bought the wrong car. Not the wrong example, but the wrong model.

I’ve been buying and selling cars for over 50 years. My pattern is always the same, Stumble across something that is new to me and interesting, pay a fair price for a good one, spend what it takes to make it a mechanically right car (never extensive paint or metal or interior work), then sell it for more or less what I have into it.

For instance, with our 1958 Alfa Romeo Sprint Speciale, I paid $80k, put $40k into the mechanicals, drove it on an SCM 1000 and sold it immediately afterward for $120k. I would call that deal typical.

Did I pay too much for the 250C? Possibly. Most of the cars I looked at were $12k–$14k rats. That should have been a warning. When I found my car, its mechanicals were good enough to drive from Los Angeles to Portland, it had paperwork from new, and the seller was referred to me by a trustworthy source.

But then I started treating the car like it was an Alfa with plenty of upside to reward me for upgrades. There was none. In retrospect I should have just had the “miserable” Stromberg carbs rebuilt, freshened the suspension bushings and driven it as-is. Instead, I jumped into the volcano, had Webers installed as well as a 123ignition distributor, a high-speed rear end and anything else it “needed.”

These are unloved cars with a market ceiling of $25,000 or so, but I never stopped to think of that, although a quick look at recent auction results would have told the story. 

Was the car a better driver for the money I put into it? Definitely yes. But, frankly, I’d rather have had an average driver and $20k back in my pocket. The lesson here is, don’t make a car better than it has to be, and don’t outspend its market value.

I thought it might be interesting to gather a few more opinions about what exactly went wrong. Here are some perspectives from other SCM experts:

Pierre Hedary, SCM Contributor

Looks More Valuable Than It Is

Mercedes enthusiasts frequently ask me, “Why do the W114 coupes struggle so badly in the marketplace?”

I had warned Keith about this when he bought his 250C. You can spend $30k improving a $15k example, and it will still sell for $15k–$20k.

I also wonder if the disappointing sale had to do with the recent repairs. Keith did a lot of things right when he refurbished this car, but he also did one thing wrong that could have affected the sales price.

He updated the differential, per my recommendations, to a 3.46 unit from a 1975–81 300D. These cars originally had a 3.92:1 rear axle, making the engines work too hard even at modest highway speeds. The differential upgrade lowers highway revs enough to allow relaxed driving at 75–80 mph. He also installed stiffer Bilstein R107 shocks and made sure any glaring mechanical issues were fixed. And on any W114, there are usually plenty of these, so much so that these cars are often unusable for any meaningful driving until they are fixed.

Keith also had his mechanic install Weber carburetors. This was, in my opinion, a complete waste of time and money, as the original Zenith 35/40 or 32/40 carburetors (1972 model year only) are actually quite reliable. They are only known for having a few issues (dirty fuel tank, stuck accelerator pumps, stuck needle valves, warped top covers and malfunctioning vacuum idle regulators). These conversions usually are due to a lack of understanding of how the Zeniths work.

With the single crack in the dash, which is almost impossible to repair, you have a usable classic Mercedes with an affordable price tag, whether the seller wants to admit it or not.

Ultimately, this car was never going to be the statistical outlier Keith hoped it would be. It’s unfortunate, but aspiring to break even on a car like this is totally unrealistic. You have to accept the financial loss as part of the joy of ownership.

Dean Laumbach, SCM Contributor

Buy Right

There is a well-known saying amongst those of us who are licensed resellers of collector cars, and that is, “It’s all in the buy price.” When buying a classic car, whether for personal enjoyment, an investment or strictly for resale, the price you pay at the time of acquisition is the single most important variable to consider.

I am a firm believer in paying more up front for a vehicle that checks all of your boxes, with mechanical and cosmetic condition being the most important. Reconditioning costs are never inexpensive, and it’s easy to underestimate these costs while the euphoria of finding the “right car” is right in front of your eyes. Even for professional resellers, underestimating reconditioning costs is the norm. 

I buy about 40 to 50 vintage Mercedes-Benz cars a year for resale purposes, and I am considered by many to be a marque expert. While I am knowledgeable about the various makes and models I buy, my mechanic has been turning wrenches on these very cars daily for about 30 years. No matter how thorough an evaluation I make on a particular car, he will find additional items that I missed 80% of the time.

There is also an unwritten rule in the collector car market that I absolutely despise but have come to accept. Mileage has a huge impact on the value of any car that has not benefited from a rotisserie restoration, or proof of an engine rebuild and fully documented mechanical refreshening. The fact that this 1972 250C had passed the 200k milestone immediately takes the car off the radar of a large pool of potential buyers. While the significant investment in this fine vehicle’s mechanicals was well warranted, putting money into any vehicle has to be weighed against its value upon completion. In today’s market, I believe that the top-of-the-market price for a low-mileage and pristine all-original C114 or well-restored example would be in the $40k-$50k range on a great day.

This was a very nice vehicle in great condition and in a magnificent color combination. Keith’s efforts to improve the car should be applauded. However, his buy price did not factor in the costs of these improvements and the value of the vehicle upon completion. He should not feel bad about this, however. There is another saying in the business that goes, “If you are not losing money on some of the cars you buy, you are not buying enough cars.”

Roy Spencer, MercedesHeritage.com

A Narrow Market

I’m a huge fan of 114 coupes and have owned a dozen or so over the years. The market for the cars is quite narrow, being overshadowed by the S-Class coupes.

The carbureted U.S. models are notoriously difficult to make run right, and this is known in the marketplace. The 114s that will crack $20k have to be superb U.S. model survivors or a well-preserved fuel-injected Euro models. Fuel injection transforms these cars but is rare to find in the U.S.

My mantra for 114s is “only buy an exceptional car with negligible needs, or don’t bother.”

Here are some of my personal sale highlights over the past 10 years:

• February 2023: A spectacular survivor Euro ’73 280CE, sold for $40k to Germany.
• April 2019: A superb 143-km Euro ’72 250CE, sold for $24,500.
• February 2016: A gorgeous, 83k-mile ’73 280C, sold for $17,700.
• May 2014: A spectacular 11k-mile ’75 280C, sold for $20,500.
• January 2014: A spectacular 35k-mile ’73 280C, sold for $25k.

Keith’s car was represented perfectly, which also revealed its flaws. It was a great color/trim combination and seems to me to be an excellent driver-condition car that he obviously spent quite some money on. The high bid was close — if not a correct — retail value for the car. ♦