| Today I took my E-Type to the Eastern Suburbs cars and coffee event. I’ve never taken my E-Type to one of these informal cars and coffee events. I normally take what I have in the garage on the day. The E-Type is a car I normally get out for specific drives or shows. That means it’s less likely than some of the other cars to be sitting in the garage for daily use. This month’s event was the smallest I’ve been to. While the weather was certainly a factor, the other was the normal location was closed for a special […] In Australia, the 560 models were standard with a Becker 868 Mexico CD Player. This doesn’t sound like much of a deal in 2022, but back in the mid 80s this was a huge deal. Should you have wanted to upgrade your 300SE or 420SEL from the standard Becker Cassette player to the CD, you would have paid more than $2,000 extra in 1990. This is almost $4,500 in todays money. In most countries, the CD Player was an optional extra even on the 560 models, but Mercedes-Benz Australia priced them so high they needed justification for the difference between […] This month we had a shorter and less adventurous night drive. We started at McDonalds Thornleigh and took the Comenarra Parkway and Lady Game drive before crossing the harbour and finishing at Harry’s Cafe de Wheels in Tempe. Originally the drive was to finish at the Woolloomooloo location, but it has drastically cut back its late night hours. I guess this is a consequence of the shuttering of Kings Cross as a major late night venue. It’s pretty hard to find a venue open after 10PM that is suitable for these drives and isn’t McDonalds. Harry’s at Tempe closes at […] I am currently installing a Becker 1402 Grand Prix electronic in my 560SEC. I don’t have the original owners manual packet for the car, so I didn’t have an instruction guide. In any case, since my 560SEC is a UK version, it would have originally had a slightly different Becker that looks visually the same. There were a couple of buttons I wasn’t able to to identify, so I borrowed the instruction manual from a friend with a 1989 420SEL. The Becker 1402 was standard on the W126 from 1988 in Australia (other than the 560) and at least some […] Previously I had a stuck ignition barrel in my 280SE. After 5 hours of trying, I finally got it to move, allowing me to get the car out of the way. At the time, I was feeling pretty confident that the right tool would get the ignition tumbler out no problem. As it turns out, my optimism was misplaced. The first issue was getting the tool to grip the collar. The collar just screws off, but I could not get a grip on it. I found a cheap tool on AliExpress that seemed to do the job. However, a couple […] Today was the 2022 Shannons Eastern Creek Car Show. This is the biggest car show that I know of in Sydney, and is held at Eastern Creek Raceway. I’ve been going for years, but have never entered a car. All those previous times I have been a spectator, most recently in 2018. The 2021 and 2020 events were cancelled due to coronavirus and I was away for the 2019 event. One of the advantages of entering a car is you get to take it on a parade lap around the race track. Each club gets a specific slot to do […] I’m currently planning to install period correct Becker radios into my 450SLC and 560SEC. I previously outlined the radios I plan to use, and tested them. I was able to confirm that the Becker 1402 destined for my 560SEC was working correctly. Rather than using the internal 2x25W amplifier in the Becker, I planned to connect it to an external amp. While I could have used speaker level inputs, I was hoping to leverage the Becker Line out module to connect to the amp using normal RCA inputs. The Becker Line out module was part of the Premium sound […] It was back in April 2018 when I got a call from Greg at Gullwing Motors, telling me to come in as he had a car that I might be interested in. Oooh, this sounded exciting, what was it?! I couldn’t get up there fast enough to see the red W116 450SE which Greg had just towed out of a customer’s garage, together with a W123 300D, as part trade ins for a sale of a W211 E500. Growing up in the 70s, the W116 was the S-Class of my youth and in the 80s a friend’s father had a […] Today I attended the monthly Auto Brunch event at St Ives Showground. This is easily the best cars and coffee event in Sydney. There is always a huge variety on display at this event. This wasn’t the biggest event I can remember, but it probably has the biggest variety. A great example was a timewarp Chrysler Lancer. I don’t recall the last time I saw one of these, especially a car from before Chrysler sold out to Mitsubishi. Both the Mercedes and Citroen Clubs had this event on their club calendar. Like last time, I took my DS to the […] I installed the Classic Auto Sound Becker tribute radio in my 250SE a couple of years ago. The W111 series are supposed to have a slimline radio instead of a DIN size. Unfortunately, a previous owner cut my dashboard to DIN size. This meant putting the correct radio for the year was now practically impossible. Instead of putting a 70s Becker instead, I went with this tribute radio which is based on a Retrosound radio with an actual Becker faceplate. I’ve been happy with the radio in the car, and would recommend it to anyone who had their dashboard modified […] | |
