Back from the dead...

[Sixty8panther]

Yes I am very much alive... for those who might have been wondering.

Busier than ever, now a dad 3 times over.

Since this is C&G and not a sewing circle, and since I do not really

"social-network" all that much anyway I'll just fill you in on the car

411 and we can go from there.

As of last year it finally happened... I LOST COUNT as to how many

cars I have actually "owned" over the years.

Including demolition derby cars & cars I daily drove as my own even

though they belonged legally to a buddy &/or spouse, I have owned

approx 61 vehicles.

First the BAD news: as of just two weeks ago I no longer own the

1959 Buick LeSabre that I waited so long to acquire. It went to a

good home, the gentleman who bought it is actually a police

officer just a few towns away and he is just as crazy about the car

as I was. His fiance stopped by and asked about the car and said

both of them were in love with it.

Well money talks & bull$hit walks.... he showed up with cash &

bought the car on the spot less than 24 hours after my first

conversation with him.

Now for a list of my recent daily drivers:

Most of you probably remember the 1984 Mercedes Benz 500SEC [German Market Gray Import]

That car was sold to an Insurance Auction after it got a little banged up in a hit-n-run.

Don't worry, I got the ba$tard's license plate & made his insurance pay.

I also junked my wife's tired & beat BMW 735iL because of an electrical problem caused by the previous owner.

(we got MORE than our money's worth out of it, over all that was a great car)

To replace the M.B. 500SEC & BMW 735iL I bought a blood red 1987 BMW 325e coupe & 1993 M.B. 300E

The 300E was a fantastic example of the Mercedes Benz pedigree, ran like a Swiss watch... more on that later...

The BMW is another story. This car is now refereed amongst the Tight Whips Community as "Sex Panther"

because as Ross put it: "60% of the time... it starts EVERY time."

(if you're lost, watch the movie ANCHORMAN: The Legend of Ron Burgundy)

Nothing against BMW, this was my blunder... I should have NEVER bought someone else's abandoned "project".

Now back to the Mercedes Benz E-class 300 [w124]

This car was awesome! It was not as exciting as the 500SEC or even the

BMW 735iL but it was just amazingly well designed and built. I swear that

car drove with 180,000+ miles like most cars drive / ride at 60,000 miles.

You might be thinking "why is he using past tense???"

Here's why:

Edited August 3, 2011 by Sixty8panther

[Sixty8panther]

Okay, so for those still reading this, that's TWO Mercedes Benz cars wrecked in less than a year.

Both cases it was the other person's fault and in both cases they RAN a STOP SIGN in the rain.

Seriously, I drive like a Grandma now when in an urban environment in the rain / snow.

Not because I can not handle myself but because there's too many retards out there

who consider traffic control signs / lights to be a suggestion, not to be taken literally.

The good news of course was that I was NOT decapitated as I would have been in most cars.

The fire fighters & cops all agreed, this exact accident usually ends with the car's driver sliced

in half like a fresh tomato at the Olive Garden.

The 300E, and its super-rugged A-pillars saved my life... I did not even hesitate to look for

another Mercedes Benz, but this time I decided it was time to go back to a W126 hardtop

coupe... this was NOT an easy task.

1st: Most clean, nice examples were out of my price range

2nd: Technically I was replacing the wife's car... although we share most of the fleet and

she is not selfish this was to be HER primary whip, and we have two young daughters. so

essentially I had to sell her on the idea that the TWO door hardtop Mercedes Benz I had

picked out would make a great, practical FAMILY car.

Here's the good news: She LOVED our 500SEC and always said someday she could see

getting another.

So without any further introduction, here's our 1991 Mercedes Benz 560SEC.

It a bit high on the miles but runs & drives almost like a brand new car.

I say almost because we need to install the new motor mounts

(online $60 delivered to my door by UPS)

and one of the two fuel pumps is getting a bit loud. Replacement

cost will be approx $130, I do almost all the labor myself as always.

[Sixty8panther]

Thanks WMJ!

I'll try to wrap this up with just one more post cause I gotta be at UPS in less than 5 hours & I also need to sleep.

The aforementioned BMW 325e was a whole saga in and of itself.

I pretty much got so pissed off at the car I decided (for once) to seek help and I brought

the little e30 to a Foreign Car Specialist in my area. He & I have subsequently become

good friends and I even do some work for him when he gets real busy.

As it turned out the BMW was just a basket case and it needed a complete restoration,

or at the very least a lot of electrical work. Instead of dumping good money after bad

into that little coupe I decided to go back to my "roots" and get a cheap winter beater.

Enter the "Grand Bizz Marquis"

Hey, it was no Mercedes Benz S-class or even a BMW e30 but it cost $500, it was safe

& comfortable and was 100% reliable! It also allowed me to figure out what the heck to

do with my BMW 325 coupe.

One day a few weeks after I bought & registered the Mercury

I got a text message from Ross about one of his neighbors

selling an e30 sedan for DIRT cheap. It was a sedan and the

car was 2 years older than my 1987 coupe but it was also a

manual (5-speed) and a huge percentage of parts would

interchange from the red coupe. Well, it seemed almost too

PERFECT, I would short-sell the Mercury, buy this blue 318i

and use the red 325 as a parts car &/or sell that with an

honest description of it's many quirks / issues.

Less than 72 hours later I owned the BMW and things were

looking up. I had a manual trans again which was just

heaven on earth and the car's 1.8 liter four cylinder motor

provided me with my first car that averaged mid to high 20s

[mpg] in about three years!

I had a blast with this car as my daily driver through all those nasty blizzards we got

slammed with this past winter. I drove this car like I was Colin McRae while stupid

drivers got stuck in their FWD / AWD Cars & pickup / SUV drivers spun out into

snow banks and bounced off guard rails.

Then on a cold & dark morning in March at about 4:00am I got up to go to UPS, fired

up my little e30 sedan, or Sexpanther II as we started calling it, and as I drove away

and worked the sloppy, abused shifter through its five gears I heard the dreaded

sound of lower end wrap. The car had spun a crank bearing at about 157K miles.

My total investment in BOTH of these e30 BMWs was under $2K including the work

& maintenance I had done so i was irritated but not really all that surprised or pissed.

Less than 12 hours later, as luck would have it, I sold the red coupe and almost

broke even on it despite selling it as a "parts car / ambitious project" just 8 later

I was on the highway in the sedan trying to nurse it through ONE more roadtrip

when the motor pretty much detonated like a grenade. It was truly epic to see &

hear... the car put up a tremendous fight as I kept popping the clutch to get it

running again every time it stalled out... by the time it died for the last time the

harmonic balance pulley had torn off, bouncing up & into the exhaust manifold &

ripping it wide open for that "machine gun fight inside a cement mixer" sound.

(Ross coined that phrase, he was with me since I was driving him to go look at a

'77 Buick he was interested in) When the car exploded with one last epic

backfire and the crankshaft ground to a halt, we heard nothing but the silence of

the winter's night... the wind howling and the sound of the tires on the road as the

car rolled to a stop. Without missing a beat my 2 y.o. daughter Amelia yelled:

"ALL DONE!"

This was one of the funniest moments of my life, her comedic timing was perfect.

The '77 Buick turned out to be a rust bucket & the NEXT night I had my wife

watch the kids while we went out and bought a 1970 Pontiac Bonneville four door

hardtop, powered by the legendary 455.

This car was later traded for more than we paid for it, which was $1000.

Although the transaction was sort of unorthodox. We got $700 cash,

a deer hunting bow & about $320 in silver coins.

Next up is my super clean & rust free, (originally from California) "SUV"

A 2wd, 454 powered 1991 Chevrolet Suburban.

I bought it at a yard sale, it was too solid, straight & rust free to pass up.

And now the grand finale: my new daily driver that I bought

with the money from selling the 1959 Buick: a vehicle that

cost as much as a Ferrari 348 of the same year:

My V12 powered 1992 Mercedes Benz 600SEL.

[Sixty8panther]

The best is yet to come however... I have some BIG plans for a sort of Frankenstein "Phantom" Mercedes Benz coupe.

More on that later, first I have to sell the [m120] V12 powered 600SEL.

It's been fun driving around in this beast but I only bought it because it was a once-in-a-lifetime sort of thing.

I've driven it around and had my fun, soon I'm going to flip it for a small profit & move on to an even MORE

rare & unique Mercedes Benz, but this one I will have to work hard to make it a reality.

----

For those who want to see some of those photos of thousands of others, or if you just

want to see what I've been up to in my absence from C&G check out my Flickr .com

photostream as it has been my new "home on the internet" as of the past two years.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cadillac_v16/

Hope all is well with all my friends on C&G, in the coming weeks I'll try to catch up with

some of the older threads & major news. Good Night for now!

Edited August 3, 2011 by Sixty8panther

[Camino LS6]

You've been busy, 68.

Glad you decided to stop in and give us the update.

[Drew Dowdell]

Stick around and chew the fat a while.

[Sixty8panther]

Thanks guys. It is nice to browse the forums and see familiar posts & new topics.

I miss doing the trivia, posting updates on car shows & car spotting...

Speaking of which, here's a current favorite of mine: an awesome, frequently driven

1933 Chevrolet Sedan, well dressed & quite stately with it's '34 hood ornament &

side mount tires. I love this car to death, if I win the lottery I'm buying it for my

"around town summer driver". The gentleman who owns it is an awesome guy too!

[Lamar]

Congrats on all the new additions, human and mechanical.

Man, you go through some cars, though... but it always seems out of necessity.

[GMTruckGuy74]

Welcome back, friend! It's nice to see you posting here again

[Drew Dowdell]

Welcome back, friend! It's nice to see you posting here again

We're getting the band back together...

[Z-06]

Glad you are doing good and you are safe after nigthmarish time with the accidents and blow cars.

[ocnblu]

Sixty8Panther!

[daves87rs]

Stick around and chew the fat a while.

+1

It's too damn quiet here sometimes....

[Sixty8panther]

Hahah... thanks guys.

The BMW is one of only three cars I've blown the motor in.

It may seem like that's nothing to brag about but if you

saw some of my other "winter beaters" & demolition derby

cars you'd understand why I say that.

As far as the TWO accidents in less than a year... like I

said, watch out for retards driving in the rain & disregarding

stop signs or traffic lights.

Random Shot of the day:

[vonVeezelsnider]

Glad to see you're alive... that's a pretty sweet arrangement of German metal you've got right now to be sure!

[2005 EquinoxLS]

Glad to see you are alive and well. I still got my 2 b-bodies and they are doing well.

[knightfan26917]

Welcome back, friend! It's nice to see you posting here again

We're getting the band back together...

Awesome!!!!

Cort | 37.m.IL.pigValve.pacemaker | 5 Monte Carlos + 1 Caprice Classic | * CruiseNites_2011_Chi.IL *

MCs.CC + CHD.models.HO.legos.RadioShows + RoadTrips.us66 = http://www.chevyasylum.com/cort

"Gonna do my very best" __ ABBA __ 'Take A Chance On Me'

[A Horse With No Name]

You've been busy, 68.

Glad you decided to stop in and give us the update.

Ditto...I have been super, super bosy myself, but I still think of all you guys almost every day

[Sixty8panther]

Well said 66Stang.... my years at C&G have made an indelible mark on me.

It was here on this forum that I shared my dreams & crazy schemes of how

GM needs to bring back the F-body, it was here that I discovered tons of

awesome factoids & little known facts about cars, GM & otherwise, and it

was here that I've made several life-long friends.

Hell, I still have about a 1/6 dozen of you guys in my cell phone to THIS

day, even though I've gone through at LEAST seven cell phones in the

past few years. Some of those numbers I have not called in 3, 4 years but

it's not for lack of caring.

Speaking of which, is GM1 still active, I think of him often but I think the

last time I remember him being active on the forum was around 2007...?