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This is the story of how me and my w201 came to be and how far we've come til today. Hardships and all. Follow me on instagram, where a lot of these photos have been pulled from. My user name is xkylex.
Around this time last year I decided to purchase a w201. Being discouraged with my never ending Subaru build, I just needed something that I could enjoy that wasn't my moms car.
I saved my pennies and waited patiently until the right one came up for sale. I really wanted a manual transmission 190e. The only 5-speed models available were cosworth models and out of my price range (they are quite collectible up in the great north of Canada and start at 10k). Just as I was about to give up and start sourcing e30 options, a beautiful 91' 2.6L sportline with a 5-speed was posted for the crazy price of $1800!
I called the owner 4 hours after the ad had been posted and he broke the news to me that someone had put a deposit on it. My stomach dropped, I got off the phone with him so bummed. I immediately called back and stressed that he call me if the buyer fell through "I'd happily come and get it asap". By the time I was off the phone with the owner, the ad had been removed.
A week and a half had passed and I received a text from an unknown number saying that the buyer of the car had fallen through and that I was next in line to get it. At this point I had messaged probably 5 different e30 and 10 auto transmission 190e owners; so I really had no clue what car this message pertained to. I called him up with a bit of confusion, I immediately recognized the German voice I had spoken to a week and a half prior. The owner said come pick up the car, the person that put the deposit down couldn't pull through! He said the other fellow put $200 down and that he'd be willing to drop the price to $1600 for me to include the other persons deposit.
I was at his apartment with my pals from the shop space I rent within a few hours to pick up the car. (shout out to my commonwealth homies jay92 and subarooo)
This is what I picked up that day. (actual pictures posted from the original ad)
Minutes after taking ownership of the car and sticking my plates on it we went to fill up on some petrol before we made the journey back home. The owner stressed to me that reverse was a bit funky and needed to be addressed. He showed me a trick with the shifter to make it work for the mean time. Well that trick was pretty short lived as I was stuck in reverse, stranded at the gas station, 5 minutes after purchasing the car. An hour later we fixed the issue and were on our way back home.
That weekend my lady and I decided we would take our first road trip camping in it. We really weren't sure how well it ran but what better way to find out! So I strapped my free bike rack I found in a ditch a few weeks prior to the roof and mounted our bikes.
And we were on our way!
Don't mind our unintentional matching camping outfits.
That summer brought a lot of fun times for my girlfriend and I that were accompanied with that car. I've owned tons of much much faster cars that were newer and "better" but none that have brought me as much joy as this one.
Enough was enough, I needed to purchase some nicer wheels and get the car lower. Coilover options were overpriced and not readily available and I couldn't afford to bag it at the time. So after doing plenty of research; discovering that most people that don't go the bag route source the stiffer sportline springs and cut them. I was lucky my car was equipped with these, so chop chop!!!
I found these 5x114 17x8 SSR Veinna Kreis knock offs that were in my neighbourhood for cheap. So scooped them up and located some wobble bolts.
Here they are leaned against my car after I grabbed them.
So we got to cutting the springs and fitting the wheels. Here's the before and after.
I rode like this for the most part of the summer and into the fall with some minor tweaking of the height through out the months.
While hunting for a parking spot at a Walmart I noticed another minty 190e in the lot. So I parked beside it and went in to grab a few things. It was still there when I went out. So I decided I'd grab a couple of pictures and wait for the owner to come back. 10 minutes passed and a purple haired senior citizen lady sporting a walker struggled to get to her car with her bag of groceries. Well I guess w201's are just that cool!!!
Then a few weeks before snowfall I stuffed the car into the back of a pickup truck that had braked late to avoid rear ending a sedan. It was a sad sad day for me. The car I had grown to fall in love with had some pretty gnarly damage to it. It left me confused asto what I should do. Part it out and say good bye, or spend dollar to fix it myself and move on.
I came home that night and started scouring the internet for potential other 190 options to replace it or cheap options to fix it with.
I stumbled across a non running 190d that caught my eye. It seemed to have quite a few rare aftermarket bits including an entire AMG body kit with wing. It was listed for $600. So we went to pick it up and negotiated on the price of $400 as the seller felt bad for my situation.
The plan was to see if we could get it to run and swap my wheels over and drive it. I really liked the idea of owning a diesel vehicle as I commute for 3-4 hours a day. After swapping a few corroded fuel lines and an hour of priming the system she fired right up after 5 years of just sitting. While swapping the few fuel lines I discovered quite a bit of rot in the rear wells and undercarriage. Within minutes the game plan had changed from getting the "old dezzy" to run, to stripping it and using the parts to fix my original 190. An hour later.....
An hour after that......
The car had sat like this for the entire winter as I sourced a new rad and some headlights and a way to mount the front bumper as all of the tabs were either torn or gone. It was just zip tied directly to the "old deezy's" bumper beam.
I really liked the look of the mismatched panels and thought the 2 colours went really well together. I think if i carried the pin stripe through the entire car it would really tie them together. I've always liked that JDM mismatched drift car look. The few JDM influenced w201's I've encountered on the internet I've loved.
I toyed with the idea all winter about swapping out the ever gutless oil consuming 2.6L for something more my style like a 1JZ. But funds were permitting and I have a never ending Subaru build that soaks up a lot of my cash-flow.
That brings us to the beginning of this spring. I was hoping to have my Subaru completed and driving at this point, but it has yet to happen. So my best mate Jay and I pulled it out and fitted the Depo headlights I had found and the rad. We started it up and burped the system. She started up with a bounce in her step and was excited to try and win over my heart and get out for the spring and summer. That night I listed it for sale to fund the downpayment on a new car. I had quite a few hits on my FS thread and tons of PM's regarding it.
Mine and Jay's w201's
A week had passed and I had fallen for this car yet again and pulled it off the market.
I found this vette sporting almost the identical colour as some of the panels on my benz a few weeks ago. Who knew it would be a bit of foreshadowing.....
Like I had previously mentioned that I had been considering a different motor for this chassis. But being a struggling photographer/assistant purchasing a 1JZ with a 5-speed was just out of the question. Not to mention all of the parts required to finish the swap i.e. intercooler/piping, bov and extra work required to make it fit. It all just added up too an unfeasible amount.
Then the thought of swapping a motor from the GM/Chevy LS family became a very realistic option. I managed to find a 5.3L LM7 for $350 delivered right to my shop space. The plan is to mate it with a T56 transmission or if money is tight, adapting a T5 transmission to the motor.
Here's the motor 2 days ago when it was dropped off.
I'm going to continue driving the benz until my Subaru will be completed in the next few weeks time. Once the Subaru is out, the w201 will go under the knife and I will start collecting parts for it on the cheap.
My lady and I have some adventuring planned for this summer including a 2 week road trip to Disney World and back. I'm hoping to have the swap completed and the car bagged a few weeks prior to the trip. Eurokracy in Montreal is a few weeks before our adventure, so taking it to that show will be a good shake down of what could possibly go wrong.
That brings us to today, here's how she's sitting and getting pampered with a nice scrub down.
Around this time last year I decided to purchase a w201. Being discouraged with my never ending Subaru build, I just needed something that I could enjoy that wasn't my moms car.
I saved my pennies and waited patiently until the right one came up for sale. I really wanted a manual transmission 190e. The only 5-speed models available were cosworth models and out of my price range (they are quite collectible up in the great north of Canada and start at 10k). Just as I was about to give up and start sourcing e30 options, a beautiful 91' 2.6L sportline with a 5-speed was posted for the crazy price of $1800!
I called the owner 4 hours after the ad had been posted and he broke the news to me that someone had put a deposit on it. My stomach dropped, I got off the phone with him so bummed. I immediately called back and stressed that he call me if the buyer fell through "I'd happily come and get it asap". By the time I was off the phone with the owner, the ad had been removed.
A week and a half had passed and I received a text from an unknown number saying that the buyer of the car had fallen through and that I was next in line to get it. At this point I had messaged probably 5 different e30 and 10 auto transmission 190e owners; so I really had no clue what car this message pertained to. I called him up with a bit of confusion, I immediately recognized the German voice I had spoken to a week and a half prior. The owner said come pick up the car, the person that put the deposit down couldn't pull through! He said the other fellow put $200 down and that he'd be willing to drop the price to $1600 for me to include the other persons deposit.
I was at his apartment with my pals from the shop space I rent within a few hours to pick up the car. (shout out to my commonwealth homies jay92 and subarooo)
This is what I picked up that day. (actual pictures posted from the original ad)
Minutes after taking ownership of the car and sticking my plates on it we went to fill up on some petrol before we made the journey back home. The owner stressed to me that reverse was a bit funky and needed to be addressed. He showed me a trick with the shifter to make it work for the mean time. Well that trick was pretty short lived as I was stuck in reverse, stranded at the gas station, 5 minutes after purchasing the car. An hour later we fixed the issue and were on our way back home.
That weekend my lady and I decided we would take our first road trip camping in it. We really weren't sure how well it ran but what better way to find out! So I strapped my free bike rack I found in a ditch a few weeks prior to the roof and mounted our bikes.
And we were on our way!
Don't mind our unintentional matching camping outfits.
That summer brought a lot of fun times for my girlfriend and I that were accompanied with that car. I've owned tons of much much faster cars that were newer and "better" but none that have brought me as much joy as this one.
Enough was enough, I needed to purchase some nicer wheels and get the car lower. Coilover options were overpriced and not readily available and I couldn't afford to bag it at the time. So after doing plenty of research; discovering that most people that don't go the bag route source the stiffer sportline springs and cut them. I was lucky my car was equipped with these, so chop chop!!!
I found these 5x114 17x8 SSR Veinna Kreis knock offs that were in my neighbourhood for cheap. So scooped them up and located some wobble bolts.
Here they are leaned against my car after I grabbed them.
So we got to cutting the springs and fitting the wheels. Here's the before and after.
I rode like this for the most part of the summer and into the fall with some minor tweaking of the height through out the months.
While hunting for a parking spot at a Walmart I noticed another minty 190e in the lot. So I parked beside it and went in to grab a few things. It was still there when I went out. So I decided I'd grab a couple of pictures and wait for the owner to come back. 10 minutes passed and a purple haired senior citizen lady sporting a walker struggled to get to her car with her bag of groceries. Well I guess w201's are just that cool!!!
Then a few weeks before snowfall I stuffed the car into the back of a pickup truck that had braked late to avoid rear ending a sedan. It was a sad sad day for me. The car I had grown to fall in love with had some pretty gnarly damage to it. It left me confused asto what I should do. Part it out and say good bye, or spend dollar to fix it myself and move on.
I came home that night and started scouring the internet for potential other 190 options to replace it or cheap options to fix it with.
I stumbled across a non running 190d that caught my eye. It seemed to have quite a few rare aftermarket bits including an entire AMG body kit with wing. It was listed for $600. So we went to pick it up and negotiated on the price of $400 as the seller felt bad for my situation.
The plan was to see if we could get it to run and swap my wheels over and drive it. I really liked the idea of owning a diesel vehicle as I commute for 3-4 hours a day. After swapping a few corroded fuel lines and an hour of priming the system she fired right up after 5 years of just sitting. While swapping the few fuel lines I discovered quite a bit of rot in the rear wells and undercarriage. Within minutes the game plan had changed from getting the "old dezzy" to run, to stripping it and using the parts to fix my original 190. An hour later.....
An hour after that......
The car had sat like this for the entire winter as I sourced a new rad and some headlights and a way to mount the front bumper as all of the tabs were either torn or gone. It was just zip tied directly to the "old deezy's" bumper beam.
I really liked the look of the mismatched panels and thought the 2 colours went really well together. I think if i carried the pin stripe through the entire car it would really tie them together. I've always liked that JDM mismatched drift car look. The few JDM influenced w201's I've encountered on the internet I've loved.
I toyed with the idea all winter about swapping out the ever gutless oil consuming 2.6L for something more my style like a 1JZ. But funds were permitting and I have a never ending Subaru build that soaks up a lot of my cash-flow.
That brings us to the beginning of this spring. I was hoping to have my Subaru completed and driving at this point, but it has yet to happen. So my best mate Jay and I pulled it out and fitted the Depo headlights I had found and the rad. We started it up and burped the system. She started up with a bounce in her step and was excited to try and win over my heart and get out for the spring and summer. That night I listed it for sale to fund the downpayment on a new car. I had quite a few hits on my FS thread and tons of PM's regarding it.
Mine and Jay's w201's
A week had passed and I had fallen for this car yet again and pulled it off the market.
I found this vette sporting almost the identical colour as some of the panels on my benz a few weeks ago. Who knew it would be a bit of foreshadowing.....
Like I had previously mentioned that I had been considering a different motor for this chassis. But being a struggling photographer/assistant purchasing a 1JZ with a 5-speed was just out of the question. Not to mention all of the parts required to finish the swap i.e. intercooler/piping, bov and extra work required to make it fit. It all just added up too an unfeasible amount.
Then the thought of swapping a motor from the GM/Chevy LS family became a very realistic option. I managed to find a 5.3L LM7 for $350 delivered right to my shop space. The plan is to mate it with a T56 transmission or if money is tight, adapting a T5 transmission to the motor.
Here's the motor 2 days ago when it was dropped off.
I'm going to continue driving the benz until my Subaru will be completed in the next few weeks time. Once the Subaru is out, the w201 will go under the knife and I will start collecting parts for it on the cheap.
My lady and I have some adventuring planned for this summer including a 2 week road trip to Disney World and back. I'm hoping to have the swap completed and the car bagged a few weeks prior to the trip. Eurokracy in Montreal is a few weeks before our adventure, so taking it to that show will be a good shake down of what could possibly go wrong.
That brings us to today, here's how she's sitting and getting pampered with a nice scrub down.
can't wait to see more
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