I have been on a diet since August, giving up carbohydrates, and successfully lost 10kg of fat. The drastic reduction in sugar intake did something to my brain: I wasn’t thinking as brightly. Therefore, the writing frequency dropped significantly, from publishing once a week to twice a month. Another reason why I wrote less is that I really devoted all my time to Nonna’s work. After 8 months of hard work, now it’s reward time.
Today I want to talk about a few benefits of restoring a car. As with all cars, restoring them yourself can increase your knowledge, reduce your fat deposits, save you a fortune, and hopefully make you proud and improve your mood. Beside these, there’s also something else between this particular car and me.
Emotional Value
Part I
For Nonna and me, first of all she improves the completeness of the collection. I had no silver car before this. I think pre-facelift silver is “the color”. In the 140 era, all Mercedes design proposals were first made into 1/5 models, then 1/4, then 1/1. All 1/1 design models were silver, which means the design was based on the body being silver. In other words, many of the brain’s automatic visual processing is based on silver, I will discuss this in depth in other topics later. In general, a pre-facelift silver car is no different from the silver model approved by the board in December 1986. If you only could own on of these cars, 744 Brilliant Silver and 7181 Stratus Grey are the most legitimate combo.
Despite this, why did I get a silver one after owning so many 140s? Well, silver wasn’t my preferred color at first. After I went through many others, combined with the knowledge of history and repeated appreciation, silver finally made it to my list. You need to go through a lot before you make some certain decisions. Meanwhile my other cars didn’t have Zebrano wood either, Nonna’s is a good addition. Zebrano is an artifact of the old times, although it was available until it was replaced by eucalyptus, the color became darker after the MY1995 facelift. I was hoping for a light, shiny Zebrano. I think it makes people happier than dark walnut, like the car was filled with amber and honey. In addition, she also offered a two-tone pre-facelift interior, which means a dark brown dashboard. I agree that the light interior does not help to emphasize the bright sheen of Zebrano, I prefer blue or red, maybe I will go and get another example at some point.
Most importantly, I really treat her as an icon of my grandma, so much so that I don’t think she is really gone. When she died, my children were only 3 years old, so I should be the youngest person in the world who remembers her. I would like to talk more about her while I still remember, why she deserves a car. Grandma only got educated in elementary school for 3 days, then dropped out because of corporal punishment by the teacher. She experienced the begging life that most Chinese people experienced at that time, then married my granddad, a team leader in a textile factory, and became a textile worker. After she had to retire early due to heart problems, my cousin and I were born, she began to take care of everyone in the family. Including my grand grandfather, there were 8 members in total, which included making food and clothes, and of course housework. My cousin and my parents were busy, so we lived with our grandparents. I still remember the day, 25 years ago, when my grandma, who was troubled by heart problems, tried to commit suicide by hitting her head against the wall, the wall was shaking. My cousin and I hugged each other and cried, then my grandfather rushed back. She felt that her health brought a burden to the family, but we all knew that everyone in the family depended on her. Thank God, her heart got better later. Overall, she is an ordinary housewife since I was born, but she is great because she gives everything for this family.
There are two ways for people to leave, one is the end of life, the other is the disappearance of memories. In her last few years, we rarely interacted, she was lonely. She was unfamiliar with everything new and lost all her friends. So she was destined to leave this real world and find the people she loved in another world. But in addition to the memory of her funeral, I always feel that she is still around. However, I am afraid that I will forget her, so I have Nonna. Nonna is the car that I lost and found again. She is silver like grandma’s silver hair. Her hair was silver when I was born, and it is grandma’s eternal icon. Incidentally, the car’s only previous ownership was a textile factory, while grandma was a lifelong textile worker. Therefore, before everything started, the goal of the restoration inherited her spirit: frugal, cautious and old. We don’t intend to make her look like brand new, but to preserve the traces of ages.
I tried to preserve the original parts that could be restored or reused, especially the interior parts. The seats were not redyed or any kind of repaired. Of course, the exterior paint could only be renewed to the freshest state, which our painter thought was a bit contradictory. To me, the contrast between the exterior and the interior is like an elder with aging skin wearing a decent new dress, which makes sense. After we finished polishing and started test driving, hey, she really feels like an old car. You can feel the suspension is seamless when passing through rough roads, because everything has been updated to factory specifications. But the original elements inside: the wrinkles on the seats, the scratches on the windshield remind you that this is a long history. I preserved some of the car’s stubborn problems, such as the original rear windshield that has been oxidized and blurred.
The restoration started on March 2, 2024, we announced this is a wrap on November 15, the day before the anniversary of her death. In fact, we were about a month later than planned. I didn’t deliberately set the completion date to her memorial day, that might sounds depressing. We just accidentally postponed it to this time. That night, the workshop was filled with champagne and kebab, we celebrated Nonna’s release.
Part II
It is a pleasing transformation to transform a dying car into a mood changer that can make most people happy in 8 months. However, the process is not always enjoyable, a lot of sweat is left in the paint booth in the hot summer, a lot of sludge has long entered the nails, and many temporary scratches have been added to my hands. Restoring a car is not about instant gratification, it is an ascetic practice. Happiness is quite short compared to the effort, you can even say that this thing can make you happy for two days: the day of departure and the day of triumph. But happiness is always fleeting, isn’t it?
Although I often immerse myself in ascetic work, I demand new adventures in life. I do not accept to repeat the same thing dozens of times. Therefore, I prefer to work on different types of cars rather than repetitive things like driving and owning. This time I participated in all the work of Nonna unprecedentedly, which means touching more than 90% of the parts of this car, some parts just fortunately did not need to be touched. Compared with the past, I learned new skills, let me list them briefly:
- Lengthy paint wet sanding
- Complete engine rebuild
- Complete front and rear axle rebuild
- More understanding of early cars
Even at the last minute I was given a thorough education, that month of delay was due to a mysterious idle problem. Although we started it in one go, the idle was high and rough, just like when I picked her up. HHT has no DTCs, but you can tell the car went into limp mode by the idle set to 1275 rpm. In the process I started with a thorough inspection of the engine compartment and found three previously overlooked flaws. Then I began to doubt myself and opened the valve cover twice to check the timing. Finally I took out the diagnostic program and read it, and with the help of the ECU diagnostic tool found the fault in the E-GAS control module. In the process I learned again, and needlessly learned more about Nonna and early HFM cars.
Compared to the smug thought after painting Persian Kitty: “My sons will proudly tell their classmates that their dad sprayed that car” is outdated. Working on cars is now my routine, one day their classmates will be tired of it: “Well, I know you came to school in another brand new car today, and it was restored by your dad.” You know I don’t really care what other people think, I just want my sons to be happy, and it sounds like riding in a family-built car is more meaningful to them than “my dad votes for a lot of people in congress” or “my dad gets a lot of money from trading cars”.
Right, I don’t have a lot of things to be proud of. I have a happy family, that’s the main thing, without it I wouldn’t be able to work on any car. The idea that always stays is that when my kids are old enough we can work on cars together. Restoring cars is a learned subject, if you want to master everything yourself, there are all the subjects you know: math, physics, chemistry, history, English, Deutsche, geography. There are too many advanced courses that are not included before college… But people heared my idea and ask me: “Will they really want to work on cars with you?”. I just smile, I think they will, because they are my sons.
Monetary Value
Part I
Interestingly, this school as an entity does not profit directly from monetary matters. We do not trade cars, we do not distribute parts, we do not restore cars for a fee, we do not charge for consulting, we do not publish texts for money, and we do not have a penny in our account for the 140. I do not do any of these things because I believe they would delay our progress in pursuing our first priority. But you can do the math after the restoration and figure out how much you saved, which can give you some comfort. Or, if someone insists on you restoring their car, what figure should be used to dissuade them.
One owner of a 1992 400 SE had his car restored in Beijing for a little over $40,000, which is generally considered a large sum relative to local income levels. I can tell you though, if someone were to restore a W 186 300 S, it wouldn’t be more than that in China, but it would be half a million at the Classic Center in Califronia. So taking into account labor inflation and purchasing power in the US, someone would actually have to pay half a million to restore a W 140 decently. OK, let’s get back to the almost dizzying $40,000, that would buy a new Mercedes C-Class, but is it too much? Before the restoration began I decided to add another piece of research: How much does it really cost to restore a 140? Octavius had a thorougly restoration, but it was a bit over-restored, not everyone wants to use a lot of NOS and even new genuine bolts. Nonna is an economical project in my opinion, modestly somewhere between a normal workshop and Sindelfingen factory. If someone really wants me to restore a car for him, I will do at least this much. Costing is divided into two aspects, materials and labor.
In the usual spreadsheet I added 2 columns next to the parts procurement cost, they are “Price Charged” and “MSRP”. MSRP is the dealer price before discounts, depending on the dealer, it is definitely higher than the dealer I work with and some normal US dealers, but lower than most European dealers. My resources are hard to replicate for others, so it is a fair price for others. “Price Charged” is the adjusted procurement cost, i.e. if this is a repair shop, how much would they make? The price adjustment is not just because of greed, but also takes into account the non-reproducibility of some costs: there are limited NOS bargains, they will eventually run out, so you will get a price between cost and MSRP. On the other hand, if it is a NLA, it may be worth more than MSRP.
Let me start with my side. So far I paid a total of $6,955 for parts and materials, most of which were the lowest prices in the world, from the $1.80 NOS power steering pump filter to the $100 NOS starter wiring harness. There were also many free parts from donors that were not added to the procurement cost. There are also 8 months, and I have put in most days of the past 8 months, 6 hours a day. However, there are no additional expenses, $7,000 is the total monetary cost on me. If my wife were to check my bills one day, I don’t think I would be kicked out of the house because of this number.
Part II
What if I charge the client as a restoration workshop? This is the second scenario we consider. Typically, workshops charge a 20% to 50% commission on parts. The premium on parts can be very flexible, such as non-reproducible NOS. The value of the used parts from donors is set at a reasonable price from the used parts seller. Overall a reasonable quote is made, because this version is the “bottom line”, and we will also make a third version with the highest premium. Finally, the regular dealer parts premium is 20% – still lower than many dealer quotes. The parts and material costs total $26,549.
How much should I get for labor? It depends on how much you think my 8 months worth, of which I worked at least 7 full months. I did more than 90% of the work, but still not all, our employees also participated. There are also utilities, property fees, rent, which can even be ignored, let’s just calculate how much I am worth. Our employees’ minimum monthly salary is $1500, but if you give me this number, I can’t be attracted to these jobs. If I don’t participate in this work, then nothing will happen. So, if I can only survive by restoring cars and rely on restoring cars to maintain my current lifestyle, note that I can only restore 1.5 cars a year or less. In China, I need at least $50,000 to be willing to take on this project. If it is in the US, I need more.
So if I’m a dedicated, conscientious and non-greedy workshop, I’ve saved $76,549 in the last 7 months. Not much? Let’s move on to the next version. If you order parts at MSRP instead of looking for reasonably priced NOS or restoring them, which is actually what many workshops do. Many aging parts cannot be repaired by Mercedes dealers or some workshops. The MSRP price list is provided by the local Mercedes dealer, and as I said it is on par with dealer prices in Europe or lower. The procurement cost of the parts alone is: $177,832. This even excludes many NLA parts, and authenticity is greatly compromised because many fasteners are replaced with new specs. We don’t even have to consider labor costs, which would be astronomical at the dealer. Just add my fees and we’re already $177,832.
That being said, the 400 SE owner wasn’t completely happy with his $40,000 restoration. If you ask me, as a historian I think it needs work, as a shop owner I think it needs more money. We restored several 140s for clients between 2014-2016, each costing around $20,000, and I can say they were nowhere near being Concours d’Elegance competitors. Don’t pretend $20,000 is a lot of money, think about the 10:1 cost of parts to the car on a Mercedes, and even though I installed parts with an MSRP of $177,832, the car actually only added $17,783 in parts. Holy crap, what a horrible number. I’m thankful I didn’t have to send the car to anyone and got the restoration done with minimal numbers. If my wife asked me how much I’d made in the last 8 months, I think I’d be complimented on that MSRP number.
End
You may be wondering, why spend so much to restore a $2,000 car instead of just buying one for $20,000 that requires no work? Wow, to me it’s like being at a US or Chinese dealer in the 90’s, you don’t want to pick up a car straight out of the shop that was built to someone else’s will. W 140 has too much diversity. Unfortunately, only 2 of the dozen specs I like have quality preserved examples, so I can only build them myself. As I said, the rewards are not directly expressed in monetary terms, these returns are worth more than money. Because no amount of money may be able to exchange for these returns efficiently. Even I can’t help but waste my money on this budget-conscious project that has such high hopes.
When I thought about the mood-changer in front of me that was once a dying car, my first reaction was not pride, but: Oh my God, what have I done! When passersby praise the car, I can’t even tell the truth that I did 90% of the work, because few people will believe it. They believe that S-Klasse users and classic car owners here will not even wash the car themselves. After everything we’ve been through together, the feelings are so mixed. It seems that there is nothing worth showing off, but I feel heavy: if a person can stick to one thing for 8 months, he can change so many. We should really reflect on how many great things we could have done in our lives. This is a triumph of will. After it all, you’ll learn how the current era is different from that great era, why it happened, and be brought to tears.
I seem to have returned to the 1993 when Nonna and I were created, that year I met my grandma for the first time in my life. Now, with passion and longing, I’ve returned to where three of us, started to sort my emotion…I’ve been there. I didn’t explain the emotion behind Nonna was given to my father, or any family members. I believe everyone misses grandma in different ways. If I am the last one to pass away, then grandma’s existence in this world will disappear with Nonna and me. Then Nonna will be free. Maybe only this piece of paper will be passed down to my descendants to prove that we all existed.