The premise of the event was to celebrate the Mercedes-Benz wagons.   Obviously any club member could join, but the focus was for wagon owners.   I think its great the club is starting to embrace these sort of niche events.  There used to be a reluctance that I could never understand.  In a large club its impossible to create events for everyone, so having a range of different events that may be of interest so some, but not others is definitely the way to go.    This event appealed to wagon owners, so hopefully we’ll start to see more and more events that target different interests, even ones that I have no interest in.

The event was held at a Surf lifesaving club in Palm Beach, the most northerly of the Sydney beaches.   It is a nice spot and a good place for a day out.   The forecast of bad weather was probably a good thing, as parking was easy – this is not always the case.    We were able to access the club because a couple of our members were also surf club members.   It was a nice spot to relax and we had a delicious lunch.

Proving their popularity, the S124 wagons were the mainstay of the event.    On the day we had:

• 3x 300TE – all 1990 model series 2
• 4x E220
• 1x E280

There was also a modern C class wagon.    Sadly, we didn’t have any S123 wagons, or even a series 1 S124.    We did beat our record of seven wagons at the recent tech day.    Given most of these wagons were used extensively from day one, they were all fairly high mileage and all cars in regular usage.   Unlike with a coupe or SL, it was rare for a wagon to be purchased as a weekender.

Considering I was a last minute attendee, I’m glad to have made the Longroof Long Lunch.

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We were not off to a great start as there was torrential rain, so the original venue of somebody’s house was not going to work.   Luckily one attendee offered the use of his factory unit with undercover parking which made for a great location.

On the day, we had seven S124s.   Three 300TEs, all 1990s and all built within a few months of each other.    Two E280s and two E220s.   Later in the day, it was worked out that the total KM travelled over the six cars left was 1.8M km.   The highest was my car on 375,000 and the lowest was the white 300TE with 267,000.   Average was 300,000.   S124s were generally bought to be used, and most racked up pretty big mileages.    Even though it was a strong seller, there were no 230TEs at the event.  Nor were there any series 1 cars at all.

Everyone was either doing various jobs on their own car, or lending a hand with some others.     Both my car and the white 300TE had new tailgate struts installed.    Not only did we have a lot of help getting the job done, but the use of some special tools as well.   For something that sounds quite simple, it  is a surprisingly difficult job.   I’m really glad I got it done, and I don’t think I could have done it on my own.

The white E220 was getting SLS spheres replaced.   This again looked like a more involved job than on a W126.   The other E220 looked like it was having various things done, although my main focus was on the tailgate struts.

It was a full day – but very enjoyable.   We started at 9am, and the day was still going strong when I left at just before 5pm to go to a family event.   There is so much to learn about these cars even thought I have been driving them and working on them my entire adult life.

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