Its funny how I only find time to write when I`m really stressed out but cant really fall sleep. So this time it has been 7 months from my last posting. Now back to my story....
The last couple of months have been filled with me buying and selling standard normal daily driving cars that I kind of forgot the wonderful feeling of driving a classic or even buying a classic. Lets just say that I got so carried away with making money that I forgot the main reason why I choose this line of business which was BUYING , RESTORING and SELLING CLASSIC cars.
My uncle asked me about a month back to help him find a classic W123 Mercedes Benz as he was kind of bitten by the classic car bug. His requirements were simple and the car he wanted had to be an automatic and it had to have the ever popular and ever reliable Mercedes Benz Black engine which runs on a timing chain. The W123 230E was selected as the best option compared to the 200E as the older model cars needed a higher cc to to do justice for the automatic gearbox. Budget given was RM10000.00 for a good running example.
I was quite excited because the last classic Mercedes Benz I bought was well over a year ago and I was kind of getting bored working on old BMW`s. I knew finding a W123 would be a easy task as there were plentiful in the market but finding the right car at the right price was gonna be a challenge. The price for a w123 would start from as low as RM4k to as high as RM25k for a pristine mint example.The cheapest Automatic would start at RM6.8k (BTW this is the car we bought).
So while I was still surfing the internet looking for good bargains I noticed an advert for a W123 Mercedes Benz 230E Automatic. The asking price was RM6.8k and the cheapest comparison to that was RM10.5k but the location(Sungai Petani) of the vehicle was too far away for us to make a quick trip over and check out the deal. So most arrangements were made over the phone and a small deposit was given even without ever seeing the car.
The collection of the car was delayed a couple times due to our busy schedules and unforeseen circumstances but the big day finally came after about a week of placing the initial deposit. We left KL at around 11am and headed to Sungai Petani which should be a 3 and a half hour drive but thanks to the festive period and numerous speed traps on the road it was soon to become a 5 hour journey. Our first stop was at Tapah rest stop to get some lunch and the food was simply fantastic as the Nasi Ayam we ordered looked more like Nasi Burung and to make things worst it looked like an old crappy Burung. But to be honest the soup was good and I think the crappy Nasi Ayam made everything taste better even the Red bull I was drinking tasted out of this world.
Since this was not a journey to find the best food places in Malaysia we continued our mission to reach Sungai Petani before the JPJ office closes. We arrived in Sungai Petani around 3.40pm and was taken thru an old Kampung to get the the place where the car was stored. After passing many cows and people who rode their bikes like cows we finally reached our destination.I soon realized that the pictures of the car posted in the advert looked so much better then the car in actual life. So since we did drive so many hours and was forced to eat Nasi Burung we decided to take it out for a test drive anyway as sometime looks can be deceiving ..........
To be continued.
