Lost a Bet

This car was auctioned at Mecum Anaheim, 2015 for $180k

A friend and I had a bet on what another 190SL would go for at the Mecum Anaheim auction. We were both way off. He guessed $125k and I guessed $100k. It went for $180k! It was an older restoration so I thought it would go for less. You never know with auctions and, of course, it's hard to tell that much about a car by looking at a tiny photo on the internet.

Whoever lost the bet had to buy lunch at In-N-Out Burger. That was me. I figured it would be fun to pick up my friend in our 190SL, so I loaded the car on my trailer and hauled it to town. We had fun driving around in the cute little car on a warmer-than-usual November afternoon. It ran great! And we enjoyed good burgers.

At Prescott Cars and Coffee, November, 2015

The next day I took it to Prescott Cars and Coffee in Prescott Valley. It's a local version of the famous event in Southern California. This was our car's longest drive yet, about 20 miles round trip, and it was awesome to be driving it. The event wasn't quite what I expected. There were very few vintage cars. It was mostly tuners. It was fun to see a new generation of automotive enthusiasts enjoying their cars and each other. Not my scene, though. This was the third time it was held ( on the third Saturday of each month). It has been a different bunch of cars each time so maybe future events will have more vintage and exotic cars. I'll probably go again.

I met Robert Webster, another Mercedes restorer, at Cars and Coffee. His shop, Webster Workstatt, is in Phoenix and he used to work with Jared King, the restorer I know in Prescott. He mostly does the mechanical end of the restoration but is starting to get into the whole thing. Small world. I can't imagine there are many more people in AZ who specialize in restoring the old 190SL and 300SL Mercedes. They may be the only two! I'd post Jared's web site but I don't think he has one. He specializes in bodywork, paint and meticulous assembly of the cars.

Good friends of ours, Bill and Laurel, have a small empty garage at a property they own in the middle of Prescott and they graciously offered to let me store the car in it. This is great! One of the reasons I am not driving the car enough is because I would have to load it and unload it from my trailer every time I brought it to town from our house. Now I can just go to the little garage and drive the car.

Our car in the backyard of our rental house in Prescott.

It doesn't have a top yet, or a heater hooked up, so I will still not be driving it much for the next few months. It's just not that warm here for convertibles in mid-winter. I will probably bundle up and do it anyway, at least a couple of times. This could also be an incentive to install the top fabric and maybe even fix the heater.

Old Photos, Ads, and Posters

I have been too busy with other things to work on the 190SL the last three weeks. I did get new motor mounts sent to me and I now have the bow drill which is the fabric that wraps all the bows on the convertible top.

Next week, if I can, I will get the new motor mounts installed. Not sure when I will tackle the convertible top project. I have to get psyched up for it. Having not done anything like this before, I don't want to do it wrong. Really, all I want to do is drive the car but the weather has been wet so no driving until things dry out a bit.

For entertainment one evening I searched the web for old ads, photos, and posters of 190SLs and other Mercedes from back in the day. Here are some of them. Enjoy!