Junkyard Find: 1974 Mercedes-Benz 280C

by Murilee Martin

Published: October 11th, 2013

Since I’ve been haunting self-serve wrecking yards since the early 1980s, I’ve seen some patterns in the average age of various junkyard inhabitants. Detroit cars show up in large numbers after about 10-13 years on the road. Toyotas and Hondas need about 20 years. Off-brand Japanese stuff (e.g., Mitsubishis, Daihatsus, Suzukis) appear in under a decade. 1980s Hyundais started showing up in these yards when they were under five years of age, which is a terribleness record. Mercedes-Benz cars, however… well, the stuff they built in the early-to-middle 1970s is just now appearing in large numbers at U-Wrench-It.

The W114/W115 series ran from 1968 through 1976, and they tended to last for-freaking-ever. Only now am I seeing them in junkyards in anything approaching large numbers; we’ve seen this ’73 220 sedan and this ’73 280C coupe so far in this series.

This one is a rust-free California car, but pretty well used up and not worth restoring. Still, a shame to see it leaving the road.

I though about grabbing this Becker Europa cassette deck and selling it on eBay, but it looked a bit too rough.

At least a few of this car’s parts will live on in other W114s.

#1970s #1974 #California #DownOnTheJunkyard #Junkyard #JunkyardFind #Malaise #MalaiseEra #Mercedes-Benz #Mercedes-BenzW114 #W114

Murilee Martin

Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.

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4 of 45 comments

Ex-x-fire on Oct 11, 2013

That intake looks like a quadrajet would bolt right on. Didn't they have fuel injection by then?

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- Dr. Kenneth Noisewater on Oct 11, 2013
  
  Aren't those designated by having the letter E(inspritzung), like the 280SE?
  
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- Glwillia on Oct 12, 2013
  
  Yup, Mercedes had been using fuel injection since 1954, with the 300SL. I've never owned a W114/115, but I think they are direct swaps.
  
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Lovestick-tr on Dec 22, 2013

hi i have some car like this but i need some parts how i can find it thank you 1 - w114, 280c AC CONDENSER with triangular bracket without fan , center a.c swtich 2- 280c driver side ( without miror ) and passenger side CORNER WINDOW GLASS 3- us front and rear bumpers 4- front speker cover 5- windows regulator with motors,windows installation wire cable, front switch panel with switch, rear windows swtich and front and rear side doors panel thank you :) 6, and some small dashbaord parts i added pictures 7- complete middle center board 8- under the dashboard cover left and right side thank you

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