Newsletter No.120
23rd June 2009.
Hello and welcome to the latest Newsletter.
Hello everyone, I put off last month's Newsletters for various reasons. Apart from being very busy with both Chris and Murray having time off on holidays we had also had a lack of cars to sell. For a month or so every car we got in was sold before we even managed to get it advertised!!! Not bad when you listen to all those out there who say we are in a recession?
One thing that has happened since the last Newsletter is the WA club Presidents Dinner where I was the guest speaker. As part of my speech I presented a PowerPoint presentation with slides to back up the stories I was telling. It was my plan to put words to the presentation and add it to the next Newsletter. Unfortunately that has not happened yet. I should have it finished for the next Newsletter.
Anyway this Newsletter we have a great selection of cars that have just arrived for sale, a pictorial report on the Victorian Club Concours, some great links and a possible conspiracy theory!………
Please don't forget that if you have any ideas for Newsletter content please let us know .
Thanks, John & Sandra Green.
OZBENZ fixed….
After a few months frustration the admin techs on the OZBENZ forum have resolved the security issues that stops us from letting new members subscribe. So if you had been trying to subscribe with no success please try again.
It is great to see how this forum has grown over the years. Whilst we are the sponsor of the forum we do not control it. It has always been our wish that the direction it takes is decided by the members. This has been demonstrated as the emphasis of the forum has changed from exclusively Classic cars to the point where is now caters for all models with Boards recently being included to cater for all the current spec models.
I have included a few links to the forum in the "Link of the month" section to show the sort of things the members discuss.
Mercedes-Benz Club of Victoria Concours.
Chris and I drove down to Victoria for the annual Mercedes-Benz club of Victoria Concours on the 17th of May. Rather than write a report in the Newsletter I have done a pictorial report which you can find here. This is the second time I have driven the 300CE-24 3.4 AMG on a trip like this and I must say it is an awesome road car. I was trying to work out on the long drive home how I could ship it to Germany and drive it on the Autobahns!
Bulk stock buy out.
Long term customers will remember at times we have brought bulk lots of stock from importers here in Australia that represent the various OEM manufacturers for Mercedes-Benz. The last one was in Mid 2006 and was featured in Newsletter No.101.
Well we have negotiated another one. This time with a lot of engine parts and other goodies. We will be listing a lot of this stuff in the next few Newsletters and some of it on ebay. In the meantime we have already listed a few items in our ebay store. You can click here to view them. Much like this Newsletter you can subscribe to our ebay store and receive updates when we list new parts. Use the link in the top right hand corner of the page.
The photo up the top of this Newsletter is of some of the parts laid out being catalogued.
E class coupe.
Last Newsletter we reported on the new E class coupe. This resulted in a few interesting discussions with customers who read the report. I reported:
"The W208 CLK was based on the W202 C class and the W209 CLK was based on the W211 E class"
But, the night that I published the Newsletter I read on a number of sites (sorry I should have recorded the URL's) that the W209 was based on the W203 C class. They went on to say that the W209 was far superior to the W208 as it had the appointments of the W211 E class…..
So what is the story here? Well it is quite interesting. I can't prove it but my memory tells me that when the W209 was released here in June 2002 that MB made a big deal about it being so much bigger than the old W208 and that it was based on the W211 E class. No doubt both claims were true. It was bigger by 16mm in the wheel base (I checked). And, yes it does have a lot of the W211 toys in it, so you can say it was based on the W211. I can even remember people saying it should no longer be a CLK, and that it should be a ELK (yuk)
I just love a good conspiracy theory and would also love to find that press release to see just how the spin doctors put it.
Either way the new E class coupe is 100% the new E class with two doors, not a 2 door C class with E class bits. (I hope)
Upcoming events.
Here is the current list of upcoming events. If you know of an event that would be of interest to our Newsletter readers please e-mail me with the details as you will see below it does not necessarily have to be an exclusively Mercedes-Benz related event. The plan is not to put each clubs entire calendar on here, just the major events. Here are a few that I know are coming up:
25th August 2009 . Shannons Eastern Creek Classic, an excellent event run by the NSW Council of Motor Clubs and is open to all clubs and their members. It is a great family day out and you even get a chance to do a lap of the circuit in your car!! More details here.
13th September
2009.Mercedes-Benz club of
NSW Concours d'Elegance is the highlight of the club year. A time when
the Club exhibits its marque to Club members and the general public. The
2009 event will be held at Parramatta Park, Parramatta NSW. Details are
here on
their website. Phone enquiries to Karen Fail ph 02 9482-2216 or
Concours Director
20th
September2009.Mercedes-Benz
club of the ACT annual Concours, held in conjunction with the ACT
German Autofest. More details next newsletter, but you can see some
pictures from the 2008 event here.
April 2010. Yes I know that is a long way off, but there is no harm in advance planning. The Mercedes-Benz club of WA will be celebrating their 50th birthday and running the next Bi-annual Mercedes-Benz Clubs of Australia rally from April the 23rd till the 26th. It will be followed immediately by a tour of the South West of WA from the 27th till the 31st of April. You can register your interest in this event by e-mailing them here . Further details will appear on this website soon .
Links of the month.
- See this post on the OZBENZ forum and then follow the links to some great YouTube videos.
- Or maybe this post with an interesting discussion about tailshaft Flex discs. Follow the link in the first post for the scary pictures.
- The 300SL is about to be reborn according to this article which was sent to me by a Newsletter reader.
- Or you could buy this piece of history..
Cars for sale.
As noted at the top of the Newsletter used (pre loved) car sales have been very active over the last month or so. See below for the list of cars that have been sold. You will notice amongst other things that we had a C43, this has been sold and a 560SEC traded against it. This will be available for sale soon.
There are several notable new cars that have just arrived for sale and a few that are a departure from our normal range. I have listed them all in the e-mail you got to notify you about this e-mail. The 280SL and 220Sb are both standout cars, not because they are perfect, but because they have near perfect bodies in terms of rust and panel fit.
Don't forget our SL500, it has had a set of much nicer 18" AMG "Hammer" alloys fitted which suit it much better.
You can check out all the cars we have for sale here.
New cars into stock include:
220Sb Beautiful original condition
Bentley S2 Mulliner Park Ward Convertible
Karman Beetle Cabriolet, 1968 model
Cars sold include:
C180 Classic 2001, low mileage
ML270 2003 seven seat, Luxury version
300SE sedan 1988 model
280CE coupe 1978 only 154000kms
Viano Ambiente
450SLC 1976 model
C432 AMG 1998
E320 Elegance sedan 1998 only 125000kms
280SE W111 coupe 1968, restoration project.
Also in stock we have:
SL500 1994only 76000kms
W114 long wheel base sedan project
So that's it for another newsletter . Hope you liked what
you saw. If you have any ideas or want to contribute any articles, pictures
or other material please
e-mail me
here. Also, don't forget that you can check out the
old newsletters here
Thanks, John Green.
