Description
An honest, highly original and low mileage diesel 190 that’s been in the same family since new.
Sold new by Lancaster Hertford in January 1990 and remaining in Hertfordshire until we recently acquired it. This has the OM602 five-cylinder 2. 5-litre diesel coupled to Mercedes’ 4-speed automatic gearbox. Finished in Arctic White with navy blue cloth trim, and optioned with headlamp wash/ wipe, front and rear electric windows and a Blaupunkt radio/ cassette.
Only 96, 992 miles from new: low for one of these diesels at 34 years old. 83, 920 miles are recorded but the service book shows a speedo replacement by an MB main dealer when the car was just one year old. The logbook shows two former keepers, including a keeper added (transfer within the family) since recent the death of its long-term owner. The car has been garaged throughout its life and was in that garage when we collected it.
As the pictures show, this 190D is tidy, presentable, original and honest but not mint. Appears to be majority original paint. The worst bit is some rust to the offside front wheelarch lip, but for a 34-year-old car that’s not bad at all. Importantly the underside is very solid – thanks to being garaged – even the brake lines are all original.
Inside, again it’s very clean and tidy but there’s a bit of usual bolster wear to the driver’s seat.
Has books/ manuals but limited history, as is often the case with deceased estate cars.
No modifications; original radio, over mats and dealer window stickers.
We have just serviced the car, replaced the engine mounts, thermostat, coolant and fitted a new battery. Has 12 months MoT.
That famous five-cylinder diesel fires up, as expected, instantly and runs sweetly. In fact, the car drives well. The only thing we noticed is it takes a little longer to build vacuum from start than it should, but with a blip of the throttle it builds and maintains it.
It’s really hard to find low mileage Mercedes diesels from this era. The point of them was that you could put massive miles on them, and people did. Most were used up or exported years ago.
So, this honest, original, one-family-owned example with only 96k miles is quite a rare find and has great potential.
