In the middle of last month, my grandma passed away at the age of 86. Grandma was with me for most of my childhood, she devoted a lot to this family until the very end. We were all sad, and suddenly, a car entered my world.
When I was born, my grandma was 56 years old. She has had silver hair for as long as I can remember. At that time, my parents and my cousin’s parents were both busy with their careers, cousin and I were raised by our grandmother. My grand-grandfather was also still alive, together with my grandpa, my grandma had to cook and do housework for a family of 9 members. She is an ordinary Chinese woman who has lived a hard and selfless life.
There are some cars on the market that will always be there, and its listings never seem to expire. It makes sense that this situation is getting longer and longer, people always like competition, and so do I. Sometimes even if I encounter an ideal target, if it is not so popular, I will not be eager to step forward. Others should have the same idea, we all have higher priorities. A less-popular car’s audience could be less and less.
Included in this list is a 1993 S 320 in 744 Brillant Silver and 265 Beige leather, original China order, single-company owned that first registered in June 1994. This car has been listed for over a year and records show that more than 10,000 people viewed, 254 of them have reached the seller. Typically a 140 will be sold before the 15th guy asked. I’ve always wanted a silver one and it had to be pre-facelift. When I first saw it, it pretty much ticked all the boxes for me, but I said to myself, “let’s wait a little longer.”
As time went on, I discovered that there were more and more inquiries about this car, but it never sold. Every night I see it in the search results on time, kind of like my grandma. According to my dad, grandma has suffered from heart disease since she was in her 30s, my childhood was filled with her painful moans. When grandpa passed away 16 years ago, grandma was hit hard. We really don’t know how long grandma can take, but the fact is that she is getting longer and longer. After several years of recovery, grandma’s health was even better than the past, and even though she was admitted to the hospital multiple times, she came home safely every time. We were all used to her bulletproofness and ignored the arrival of her last moment. I thought she would easily pass the age of 90.
On the morning of November 15, grandma was about to make dumplings when she suddenly felt gastrointestinal discomfort. My uncle called an ambulance. She was diagnosed with digestive system failure and suffered multiple organ failure the next day. At 10:08 pm on November 16, grandma left us forever. I witnessed her completely losing her heartbeat in the hospital. Everything happened so fast, it only took 36 hours for her to go from being normal to leaving. We seemed to have expected this moment to happen more than a decade ago, but now we are completely unprepared!
We hurriedly prepared for the funeral, while the visitors went to dinner, I continued to browse used car websites. To my surprise, the listing of this 1993 S 320 turned gray in my <favorites>. This has never happened in the past entire year, meaning the link is dead and the vehicle has been sold. At this time, I was immersed in the grief of losing a loved one. I had no extra sadness to share with a car I had never met. I was just surprised and sighed: is this a coincidence? But it doesn’t matter anymore. I said to myself “Maybe this is God’s will, he tell me we have to let somethings go!” I do feel myself stupid. Is this car bad? No. Any better ones from the past few years? No. If you don’t miss it, you won’t appreciate it.
Then I continued to be immersed in the funeral. We buried my grandma on November 20th and said goodbye to her era. It was an exhausting day, was already afternoon when I got home. Just as I was getting ready to go to bed for a snap, I found that the gray photo had become full color again! That means it was relisted. Maybe someone changed his mind, maybe it was just an accident. I was no longer sleepy and thinking about one thing, should I get this car? Until I realized that this experience was so similar to our loss of grandma, and that its silver color was like grandma’s signature silver hair, I made a decision – contact the seller. I’m the 255th person to contact him and at this point I wasn’t sure if the car was still available or what the price would be, I just wanted to make sure.
We have a lot of uncertainty. The car located on the southernmost island of China. It must be reached by ship to the mainland, which can be said to be the farthest city from me. That is a lot of transportation costs. And, since this car had been listed for over 365 days but the photos had never been updated, my first thing was to ask the seller for the latest photos. I thought the seller was tired. 254 people have asked him about this car. This is just the statistics of the used car website, there should be more. But he was enthusiastic, he introduced the car to me, at least for the 255th time, and immediately took many videos to show me. I have no idea why this fine looking car never found a home, it sat in an open lot for a long time and the seller just replaced it with a new battery.
Finally, the price, I didn’t limit my budget because he didn’t ask too much. I just tentatively asked if there was a discount, because the shipping cost would be expensive. But I didn’t expect him to make any concessions, that was not his problem. To my surprise, he took the initiative to significantly reduce the price by more than 1/4, my additional discount was given after further haggling. At this point I have trapped myself, all conditions are ripe, it is time to get something to commemorate grandma! I heard that when women feel depressed, they want to spend money, at least my wife does. I feel like an impulsive woman at this moment, I didn’t test it, didn’t calculate potential repairs, didn’t even have space, but I don’t want to miss it again. The positive side is that in the future when I miss my grandma, I will be able to drive the car that reminds me of her.
I decided to name the car Nonna, which is a female name of Latin origin and has several meanings. In Italy, it’s a common term of endearment and respect used to refer to one’s grandmother, this is my grandmother. In Latin, it means “ninth” and is commonly given to girls born in the ninth month, September. This car was delivered in September 1993. Nonaa is a very matching name.
Talking about Nonna herself, she’s like my grandmother, ordinary and legendary. Nonna’s genes record a history that no one knows. Officially, Mercedes adapted new family names in July 1993, following the release of the W 202. However, the boundaries are never that clear. No one guarantees that no 300 SEL were built in August, or no S 320 were built in June. In EPC, this boundary is defined as A151344. In other words, A151344 and before are all SE/SEL, and all after are S.
The fact is that EPC rarely provides correct information on serial number ranges, because the serial number does not represent the actual production sequence, using the serial number as a boundary does not make any sense. Nonna is A144545, 6800 cars ahead of A151344, but it is an S 320, not a 300 SEL. At the same time, there is another information. All A14454x cars were delivered in June 1993, only Nonna was delivered in September. Why? Looking at all the data cards you will see that the Chinese market was the first to receive the “S” designation, earlier than anywhere else in the world.
In 1993, the Hong Kong-based Mercedes-Benz China began building a sales network in mainland China, they noticed that deliveries in China were particularly lengthy due to indirect sales and complex imports. You order a 300 SEL, and 6 months later there are S 320s all over the world! The Chinese market deserves to be renamed in advance to satisfy users. So Nonna was built in June 1993 but only left Sindelfingen in September, where it waited 3 months at the factory to receive a new name. She was not registered in China until June 1994, the new name works.
Nonna’s specs are also unusual. In summary, there are several points:
- 241 & 242 front electric seats with memory, China-spec usually do not have the memory.
- 247 electric seat adjustment – additionally adjustable from the rear, something not even common on V12.
- 303 front folding armrest, China-spec usually do not have drawer.
- 589 automatic A/C with rear independent A/C. China-spec usually do not have rear independent A/C.
- 810 audio system, China-spec usually do not have BOSE audio, even for V12.
In summary, Nonna’s specs far exceed the China-spec orders in the next five years, even exceeding V12 specs. Nonna was ordered in the first year when the S-Class was sold in large quantities in China, many luxury configurations were still retained, which did not help lower the retail price. Only the Nonna batch, the China-spec cars produced in June 1993, met these specifications.
We closed the deal at lightning speed. I was very concerned that this is a nice trap, therefore entrusted the car to a trusted carrier to pick up. After I saw the video of Nonna being tied to the trailer, I was still in disbelief, why did she wait for me? The few video shows that this is probably the most immaculate 140 I’ve ever gotten. I’ve never had such luck in the past. But I didn’t have much time to think, it was hospital season, after dealing with grandma’s funeral affairs, I started taking care of the kids with the flu.
I had forgotten about Nonna until on the first of December, the trailer driver called and I knew it was time to hit the jackpot.
The beauty of silver is undisputed and we have it in two options, single or two-tone. I used to be a fan of monochrome and struggled to get a US 1998 S 320. After a period of consideration, I admit that silver is the best color for appreciating the lines of the car, but the body of the 140 does not have redundant fold lines. Instead, the facelift lower trim makes the body look complicated, which makes a single silver color not have many advantages. Double tone will remind us of the most beautiful and primitive times, and 140 was born like that. I inspected the paint, about half are original, the repaint side is poor, another full repaint is inevitably.
Cosmetically, Nonna has incorrect headlights, they are facelifted. This was a factor that made me hesitate. Usually the reason for replacing the headlights implies a front collision. After all, the turn signal still remains orange, and updating the car is not the purpose of that replacement. I checked the front of the car and there was no sign of a collision. Then a better explanation is that the previous owner of the car was a connoisseur and he knew that facelift lights are brighter, so he had this retro fit. Restoring the headlights is a piece of cake, requiring only a pair of NOS and half an hour.
I adore Nonna’s beige leather interior, which was full of signs of use but not damaged. The beige leather seats are wrinkled but not cracked; the beige trims are yellowed but not cracked. These seats are a little smaller to sit on because the foam has completely failed, typical of tropical cars.
I especially appreciate the well-preserved Zebravo wood trim, not a single piece cracked. this was my first Zebravo and I’ve wanted it for a long time! The only non-original item is the wood shifter, and finding a matching original shifter isn’t easy. I wouldn’t put much work into Nonna other than correcting incorrect details. In the past I’ve tried to restore every car to factory condition, but now I’m so eager to be with something that has history, it’s like staying with my grandma.
Nonna has many incredible combinations, such as the economical Zebravo with rear independant A/C. On later China-specs, burlwood was standard on 140.033, and standalone A/C was almost unavailable. Nonna comes from a humanized era where you had diverse choices. Well, when I drove Nonna on the lift, I discovered that there was blue liquid leaking from the paint drain hole at the rear of the body. That is antifreeze. It was really bad! This means that the rear evaporator located under the armrest has leaked and the coolant may have filled the floor. I lifted up the floormat and confirmed this suspicion. The considerate seller even wrapped the central locking vacuum pump in a plastic bag. Luckily this is coolant, many tropical technicians prefer water and if it was water that was leaking we would be flooded and rusted like hell.
The original mechanical odometer suggests the mileage reads may be original. Nonna was one of the last cars to use a gear odometer, till 10/93. Nonna has been driving on China’s southernmost island since June 1994. Since 2018, for the sake of green and peace, cars registered before December 2000 were banned from driving, so Nonna retired. I hope those gears can start turning again soon.
The original Becker BE 1491, Mexico 2000 radio set is another bonus. There are also original receiver BE 1532, CD changer Alpine MX 3192, BOSE 0089 amplifier in the trunk. And 11 BOSE specakers, of course. Only very few Chinese cars still retain their original radios, in fact most early China-spec cars were not equipped with factory radios. This is to control the FOB price and reduce the 220% import taxes, many Chinese owners have to find the radio themselves, they are usually Kenwood or Alpine.
Checking the speakers and the amplifier is a must. In the US market, even the 140.032 has BOSE sound system (810), no one is going to steal. But they are rather rare here. Thus the BOSE components are one of the easist stolen part. How did Nonna’s BOSE speakers survive? Well, very few people are able to find a car’s VIN from a photo, I cheated. With Chinese specs, everyone assumes they have a worthless Nokia speaker and even the seller won’t notice. No one here believes that a Chinese-spec S 320 will get BOSE, because most S 600s don’t either. Of course I could find the VIN from the photo and then read this configuration from the data card. BOSE is quite beneficial for daily driving. Nokia’s sound quality is no longer enough for our ears that are spoiled by various digital products today.
The hood has an unpolished but natural feel to it, the valve cover’s coating has peeled off quite a bit, it’s just old. If you ask me what a perfect early 6-cylinder car would look like, it would definitely include the old school 104.990 engine, and here we have one of the earliest 104.994s, the 603rd. The modern valve cover makes this car lose some of its original flavor. Meanwhile it reminds us that this is a brand new MOTRONIC, better fuel economy! Once again, the EPC defines the installation time of 104.994 after A151633, Nonna got it before 6800 vehicles, how advanced it is!
There are several vanities on Nonna, the funniest part is of course this sunroof, it’s just a film. You can’t stand the ridicule of your friends when they all have sunroofs. In fact, on this very well-equipped S 320, I appreciate the absence of sunroofs, at least they are not practical to me.
Single-ownership cars always come up with surprise, one of three cool things I found in trunk is this battery switch. It’s a part related to code 987 but cannot be ordered through aftersales system. 140s shipped overseas from German North Sea port are equipped with a battery disconnection switch in the trunk on the negative terminal of the battery as of approx. 06/93. This battery disconnection switch interrupts the connection to ground preventing quiescent current loads from discharging the battery during transport or longer periods of inoperation.
A $50 bill would be added in new car’s invoice to the dealers. With this part, Mercedes warranty battery for 90 days transportation. For those well-established market, this switch could be returned and the dealers get pay back. For Nonna perhaps not. She left Sindelfingen in September 1993 and first registered in June 1994, could the battery survive? Anyway I got this part here, so the first owner kept and paid for it.
Overall I am very satisfied with this car, this makes me even more superstitious, God wants me to get such a car. Since the Chimera’s parts are unlikely to be completed after Ocatvius is repaired, we will most likely move Nonna’s refinement forward before the Chimera. I will update all the work later. While preserving and refining all the existing details, the only changes I would make would be to install steel wheels and hubcaps, it would look old and plain, just like my grandma.