The Mercedes-Benz W126 S-Class was the king of 1980s sedans and it sold very well in the United States. You’ll still see plenty of them on the street today and it’s rare that a California self-service wrecking yard doesn’t have at least one fully depreciated, high-mile example in stock. I haven’t paid much attention to these cars for this series, but that changed when I saw a 560SEL taxi in a San Francisco Bay Area wrecking yard.
At first, I thought the taxi markings were a joke, because what kind of madness could induce a cab company to drive a 30-year-old S-Class with the thirstiest engine option? But no, there really is a Bubba’s Cab — and the Yelp reviews mention the Mercedes-Benz cab.
Obviously, a W126 with a mere 250,000 miles on the clock would be a couple orders of magnitude more comfortable than a rattly 700,000-mile P71 Crown Victoria Police Interceptor still reeking of Perpetrator Piss™ from its previous police career. But the cost of maintaining a W126 must have been ten times as high as the cost of maintaining a Crown Vic.
In any case, Bubba finally retired this glorious Benz, and now it awaits its date with The Crusher.
I can feel the style and class from here.
What a goof to use the thirstiest Mercedes made at the time .
Here in Los Angeles there used to be a Taxi Co. named ” TAXI! TAXI! ” that ran an entire fleet of Mercedes Diesels, mostly W126’s but a few W123 Wagons too .
In the end they gave up and I saw a few in the local Pick A Part yards, still looked good cosmetically .
-Nate
I could see a W124 or even a W123 as a taxi, but a W126? And one with the biggest engine you could get during its heyday?
“Run What You Brung”
Someone should call Bubba and ask him what the final straw was, and how long he used it as a cab.
The W126 will always say old money to me. Seeing a clean one driving around these days is nice. No flim-flam. Last weekend at a park I saw an absolutely pristine black/black E320 from ~1994. Forgot how nice those look as well.
Mercedes used to do it right.
What’s your objection to the current s-class design?
The droopy coupe-style rear end looks poor. Other than that, I think the model is an improvement over the W220 and W221, of which I liked neither.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercedes-Benz_S-Class_(W222)#/media/File:2014_Mercedes-Benz_S_400_(V_222)_sedan_(2015-12-26).jpg
Not a good look. The W140 is the last stately S-Class option.
I always thought the W220 looked like a upmarket Acura Legend, RL or a Korean knockoff. They lost the stateleness and solidness of the W140 which I thought was one of the best looking Benz. The W221 and W222 brought back some elegance.
Funny you made me recall something. I was pretty young when the W220 came out, but I was aware of cars enough to point them out to my family “New S-Class!”
Their reaction was always “That looks more like a Buick.”
It’s probably just me, but most MBs post-2014 look more Korean than actual Korean cars, at least on the outside. The C-class looks particularly cheap.
When the E Class went to those round headlights, that was the end of an era and Mercedes became a different car company.
They had to change, but they really were the best luxury cars at any price.
I agree. The C and E were the first signs.
A friend of mine’s dad decided to sell his 560 SEL with 45,000 miles for $14,500 back around 1991-92. I drove it and man, was I tempted. It truly was an amazing driving machine. I’ve always sorta regretted not having bought it, but the thought of out-of-warranty Mercedes-Benz repairs scared me.
It’s really not that crazy, I know Mercedes were heavily used as cabs in Europe. Usually though it was the E class.
And does a Mercedes OHC V8 really get that much worse gas mileage than a Ford V8 in a Crown Vic? I’m guessing the costs savings would be pretty minimal.
But I would think the repairs would be a nightmare on such an older Mercedes, but that was the last era that was built like a tank. Those doors were closing a bank vault.
they still are, Sir. if you go to Lisbon (or any of the main Portuguese cities), for example, a fleet of 20-year-old C-Classes and 30-year-old 190s will give you a warm welcome.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/67/Lisboa_t%C3%A1xis_Pra%C3%A7a_da_Figueira.jpg
Should have yanked that lump and repowered it with a high mile 4.6 and 4R75w and boom good for another 250K.
I think Bubba must have cribbed the 4-6-8 line codes from GM and uploaded to the MB OBC. That’s the only way you could mess this up any further.
I would love to have one of these, and they are in my price range. While this saw cab duty, it’s not unusual to find low mileage examples. I understand timing chain and guides are the only critical engine maintenance, maybe this one had its chain skip?
That was only for a couple – three years in the first of the 380 series V8’s , they foolishly tried a single row timing chain and it was a disaster .
Getting over 13/14 MPG’s out of these is difficult .
The Diesels of course get much better fuel economy , upper 20’s to mid 30’s .
If you take any sort of care of it the repairs are to really bad $ wise unless you use a Dealer .
Most of the horror stories result from running it forever sans maintenance then being upset when it needs a dozen things repaired all at once .
-Nate
My parents took advantage of the 1970s gas crisis to buy big gas-hog boats for a song, since their “commutes” were nearly walking distance. This landed us a ’73 Mercedes-Benz 450 SEL, a wafty ’68 Lincoln Continental, and a Dodge Tradesman 250 conversion van previously owned by a lady of the evening–if the van’s a-rockin’, don’t bother knockin’…
The Benz had a fuel-injected 4.5 liter V8, the Lincoln had a carbureted 460 V8, and the Dodge had a 4-barrel carbureted 440 V8. All three got 10 MPG, rain or shine, city or highway. Silent, waftable torque, though…I think growing up on that is why I like EVs. The torque, not the 10 MPG.
My mother had a 72 Cadillac Sedan DeVille with a 472 ci V-8 during the 73 Arab Oil Embargo. It got 8 mpg but it was a smooth driving car with a very under stressed engine. It was a very easy car to work on–lots of space under the hood.