You can tell by the photo we don’t mean some great classic or collectable automobile. We’re talking about your family’s old wheels. In this case a 1996 Mercedes-Benz C220 with just over 177,000 miles. We bought the car when we adopted our daughter, Holly, my wife was more than happy to drive it all these years and when Holly turned 16 it became hers.
But it needs a little help, so we took it to our faithful Mercedes mechanic for a deep mechanical dive. I just wrote a check for roughly twice what the car is worth -which isn’t much – to bring it back up to snuff.
Living as we do at Road & Track in the world of new cars, checking their prices, wondering about their residual worth, yada, yada, yada, spending to refurb old wheels seems rather silly.
But it isn’t. Not only is the C220 a faithful family member – kind of like the dog -but its dented left rear fender and scruffy gray paint aside, it has a true intrinsic value to us. Driving it, you can tell there are tens of thousands of good miles left in her. Mercedes and other good cars don’t seem to be old or used, but broken in, like a favorite pair of slippers. My guess is that it will probably get Holly all the way through college.
And like many great old wheels, it has a value far beyond what I could get for it…which isn’t much.
Welcome back, C220. I think I might polish up your headlights.
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