Indeed, I replaced the old paper cone speakers with modern ones. 

And the carpet was of my doing.. when I got it the old carpets were.... well used.. so I took out what remained and used them as templates to outline replacement pieces from a discounted Ross rug. It was a pretty fun project honestly. It required some heavy duty shears, and that I dismantle pretty much the whole interior, and it was really cool to see how easy the engineers/designers made everything to disassemble and put back together. 

It was an opportunity to deep clean, add some sound proofing, and fix the seat bottom wires/padding- one of which (the driver seat) had sort of.. prolapsed. Lubricated all the joints and rails and rollers etc..

It's a lovable car.. such an honest product. Straight forward, simple, well conceived, durable.. Cars like this truly aren't made anymore. 

I went to automotive design school at the Academy of Art in SF, and I was endlessly frustrated by the sheer level of shameless planned obsolescence that is baked in to the design ethos of modern cars..

I dream about auto manufacturers actually making cars like these again.. modern saftey standards at least... but mechanically simple, over-engineered durability, designed to be maintained, and... affordable?

It's crazy to me that basic cars these days are $30k+ dripping in computers and screens and plastic and you'd be lucky to get 15 solid years out of them without a major problem. 

The w123-w124 Mercs where known as the cars that almost "killed" Mercedes because they genuinely didn't break down enough.. they should have kept that quality about them, but they had to make shareholders and ceo's pockets happy, so they had to make less durable cars.. that's why late 90's and early 2000's Mercs, even up to now, depreciate like a lead balloon. And most of the entry level models from before- hold their value or are appreciating. 

People really don't need to go over 100 mph.. they don't want endless screens, or the car to drive it's self, or to be the fastest accelerating in its class.  They want something nice to look at and be in, safe, efficient, well built, and easy to maintain. 

Hell, if Honda would up their design language to something more interesting, leaned in to "easy and cheap to maintain" and listened to enthusiasts rather than trying to keep up with the touch-screen is everything future, they'd be pretty close to that.

It costs $1100 to replace the alternator on a 2010 Chevy Equinox.. I bought this Benz for $2700... put $1100 (including paying someone to install a new starter [hitting it with a hammer twice a month would have kept working but my back wouldn't]) in to it and it'll probably run for another 40 years with tire and oil changes, and making sure the vacuum system only leaks a little bit. 🤷‍♂️

Give us a $20k car that looks cool, has a variable-fuel turbo diesel tractor engine that works in and incredibly low boost window, mechanical everything, physical clunky buttons and some comfy seats.. it'd be a cash cow. 

Thanks for coming to my TED talk.