A bit of a digression from the Fintail as I wait for the p?shish wala to start doing his thing.
These are pictures of yet another very very special car. It is my late father's 1981 240D which was bought brand new thru Shahnawaz and I collected it from the Mercedes factory in Stuttgart, Germany in early january 1981 and drove it to the UK where it was "aged" to reduce the import duty before shipping it to Pak. It was garaged and used very sparingly. The car is still very much in the family and my younger brother is its custodian.
At the time the landed cost of the car in the UK incl UK import duty etc the equiv of Rs.170,000 ( the DM was Rs.5, the ?20....). After keeping the car there for 22 months, it came to Pak in Dec 1982 and the duty etc then was 330k, giving it a final landed cost of 500k. That may sound a pittance now, but 30 years ago a new '82 Corolla pack "A" ( aircon and heater) was about 165k. Now the equivalent of the same car is around 2 million, making the present day equivalent merc about 6, which I presume is the landed cost of a 2/3 year old E-class. So perhaps, nothing much has changed.......!
This car was father's pride and joy, he used to say "it will see me out"........and it did......he passed away almost 12 years ago in early 2002 by which time the car had done only 79000kms. The car is all original and is driven about a 150kms each month and has a patina that only a cherished car can possess. Dad wasn't into fancy stuff so it's a basic vehicle, no power windows or central locking, just the MB tex interior, even power steering was added only in the mid nineties when his health dictated its installation. All the parts were sourced from the factory after giving the chassis no. With its 72bhp, it is excruciatingly slow but once wound up will cruise without missing a beat. Disarmingly simple it is a plethora of memories every time I sit in it or drive it.
