About - THE MB140 SCHOOL

THE MB140 SCHOOL

“Who we are?” “Where are we from?” and “Where are we going?”

This school

2400 years ago, Plato founded the Academy in Athens to teach people to move from the world of experience to the world of ideas and systematically explore the knowledge of truth. He rejected the practicality of pursuing truth, and knowledge did not need to be useful in real life. The Academy was born, and it was not utilitarian.

MB140 School is a non-utilitarian organization that shares insights and knowledge about this legendary production car with 140 enthusiasts and gains more wisdom from the wise friends who come here. Starting with ontology, we take each car as the origin of the 140 world. Then we study the history of the car with precision to each VIN, feel the impression of the car, and get our epistemology. We deepen our understanding of the car in restoration and photography, generate a series of methodologies, and again benefit the development of epistemology.

Because individual cars and what happened to them constitute the overall history of it, each of our topics is based on individual cars with precision to VIN as the research unit. As a result, historical expression will be more precise on the calendar. However, these theoretical doctrines are not flawless, because in some aspects VIN is even misleading. Therefore, we get close to the actual car and get impressions, directly disassembling and assembling cars of different periods is very useful for studying the details of the car. We thus master the secrets of restoring the car to the factory specifications.

Although these wisdom and knowledge are not always useful in reality, we firmly believe that everything has its truth. Although the object of our endless exploration is the car, we never slack off in understanding the people and society in the era of 140. A car used by the elite with 432,741 copies being produced in 10 years is enough to reflect the time it belongs to. In the process of constantly digging for the truth, we witness that era again with our beloved 140 and try not to miss every opportunity to reflect on reality.

The Internet seems to have brought us a lot, but it is far from enough. We have sorted out our gains with the core concepts of philosophy as a catalog and released exclusive content that has not yet appeared on Google without asking anything in return. In this moment of drastic and profound changes, perhaps more meaningful than the passion of cars itself is how to better understand ourselves by understanding the past and write down precious legacy of experience for the future. When our descendants encounter the angels and demons in history again, they should be able to recognize their outlines.

Despite the name “School”, there are no textbooks. For a comprehensive history of 140 and all the “encyclopedic knowledge”, please visit Christian’s great mb-w140.de.

I look forward to hearing from you who have the same passion.

aiguoce@gmail.com

tIMELINE

First restoration shop, 2014

Website mb-140.org, 2015

Connect with mb-w140.de, 2016

Research system go live, 2016

Second restoration shop, 2024

The founder

Why the W 140? Before you spend time looking for answers on my website, I would like to remind you that there is no real answer there. You have raised a good question, and maybe I will leave an article on the website to explain why this happened. Since the theme of the website is more about cars than myself, I have not spent much time on this purely personal experience.

I have indeed been asked this question many times in the past, and I remember that I often gave different answers. This happens because I think it takes a long time for people to understand their motivation for doing something, and the motivation is different at different stages. We often do things before thinking seriously, or never think about it. It is only when someone asks you that you look for reasons, because the reasons are not that important to us. Moreover, people sometimes want short answers, I will not spend hours explaining.

This question is big, it can again be answered from many angles such as psychology, history, sociology, etc. In short, I think it has to do with fate. I was born in 1993, the first year when China imported a large number of private cars, the largest number of W 140s were imported that year. W 140 is the car I coincide historically in time and space. Even so, I was not a fan of the W 140 in my childhood, it was too far away from us. When I was born, my parents lived in a 9 square meter garage, which was even smaller than the W 140. A W 140 wheel cost more than our residence.

But I like cars like other Chinese kids of my age, my dream was to have a Jetta. In my opinion, I will be the happiest person if I have a Jetta. It would be greater if I have a Pajero V33, which is the coolest off-road vehicle in my opinion. I once told my grandma that when I grow up, I want to have a V33 to take her on a trip, she was very happy, but I obviously didn’t do it. As of 13 years old, I was still curious about the future of cars, learned about the latest models through magazines, and my goals were always updated. The W 140 was never an option.

The development of private cars in China has its own specific history, I have been studying the changes in the Chinese people’s understanding of cars since the 1990s. Please imagine this: in the early 1990s, rare cars were not considered consumables, especially for cars like the S-class. Many young Chinese now say lightly that those who bought an S-class instead of a whole apartment are crazy or dumb, that real estate has been overvalued dozens of times over the past three decades, and used cars are worthless. But they ignore what kind of residence China could offer in the early 1990s. And the S-class, which is almost recognized as the best car in the world, is a completely different experience to owning an S-class or 100 dormitory units. Aside from risky jewelry and artwork, the S-class is the most expensive thing you can buy safely in China.

Therefore, cars did not depreciate in the beginning, and even appreciated due to the strict purchase restrictions in the 1990s. This situation continued until more cars were brought in, such as the new S-class. In 2006 or later, I began to notice that some popular cars in the past were disappearing from the road and they were no longer appreciated. I began to look for old cars that became rare by bicycle and on foot, and also collected car models from the 80s and 90s. I found that they were quickly ignored, how terrible it was. In about 2003 I once faced an abandoned Citroen CX 25 and asked this question to myself, is the new Geely better than the Rolls-Royce of 100 years ago? Of course, the premise to answer it is that you remember what Rolls-Royce looked like 100 years ago. Today, no one even remembers what Geely looked like at that time.

The point is, in our rush to carve out tomorrow, we ignore the past and the present. We learn about earlier history repeatedly every day. Everyone knows Newton, but seems not to remember the changes in their own lives. So before I turned 18, I completely lost interest in the future. It’s no surprise that whatever strange things seem to happen tomorrow, leave those things to others. I’m going to explore things that have happened that I don’t know yet. So I decided to get an old car as my first, which is Octavius, a 1993 S 600. Just a coincidence. What I really wanted was Audi V8 and Volvo S80. But I’m very lucky that Mercedes-Benz history is so traceable that it became an eternal subject for me from the beginning.

Ignoring changes in life is the beginning of a bad atmosphere. There is no point worrying about the future or learning about earlier history if you don’t understand the history you have lived through. Maybe one day the old S-class will worth more than the boring cement box again, at least that’s what happened for me. Overall, I’m only responsible for the time I live, which is already a lot. The study of earlier history is only incidental. The above is an introduction to my motivations from a historical perspective. I think there are many other aspects, some of which I have not yet discovered.

October 2012, the second month of my freshman year, I became the owner of my first 140, also my first car, the 1993 S 600, Octavius. Soon I realized that he was beyond my epistemology. In fact, beyond everyone I could know. At 18, my univerity offer surprised my partents, they bonus me to have a car. It was my idea, although car isn’t necessary for Chinese college life, a real car certainly worth more than bunch of minitures.

I was looking for something odd, 140 wasn’t my priority, they were the most common vehilce on 90s Chinese roads. For that reason, I never obsess with something too familiar. I wanted an Audi V8, unfortunately it’s too rare to find. By 2012, searching used cars nationwide was rather difficult. I actually started browsing used car forums half year before graduation of Senior high, where I learned the 140 was affordable. To me it was a cool idea to buy a cheap used V12 and modified with crappy body kits and newer wheels.

But no luck in summer break. My freshman began, no driver’s license, I almost gave up to own an unnecessary car but my older pal in neighbor town encouraged me and helped with hunting. I went to Hangzhou and picked Octavius, 1993 S 600 back. My elder friend was driving, we were in limp mode, no A/C, blue smog from pipes, but the cabin is suprisingly quiet. I looked at the well-preserved dash and erased my all innocent plan that could ruin it. I was not positive that any aftermarket stuff could do better and thus, I don’t have the right to abuse something survived 18 years.

Yeah, he’s as old as me. I’m still growing, but he’s at stake. Soon I relized my budget won’t cover the repair. I spent half to purchase and took granted that the value of another car could easily fix a 50% healty car. It was 150,000$ when new and the part retailing price was 10 times than the car. So I thought $6,000 would do a $1500,000 work. The greedy and helpless of local mechnic was a great motivation to create my own shop and learn everything myself. From 2013, I started DIY and in 2015 I co-found my restoration shop. In 2018, I enrolled in McPherson College Automotive restoration system for bachilor degree.

In last years, I deposit skills all over the cars, including but not limited to engine, chassis, body, paint and every single bolts and buts zinc plating. Anyway, l’m not a mechnic, there’s long way to go. Epistemology side, I started collecting historical materials from 2014 and inspired by Karl Christian, the founder of mb-w140.de, I started researching individual cars and peole, events, everything about 140. It seems the type of your 10th car depends what you 2nd car is. There were sparks and emotions betwwen me and many brands, but I repeated my first choice. Today I’m a happy daddy of two kids and more than 10 different 140s.