1980 Mercedes-Benz 300D

The W123 midsize sedans from Mercedes-Benz were the immediate forebears for what's now known as the "E-class" Benz. They were sober-sided, solid cars that broke sales records for the brand.

Launched in 1976, they were sold as coupes, sedans, and wagons, and came with an array of gas and diesel powerplants and both manual and automatic transmissions. These were found in roles as everything from taxicabs to junior executive cars all around the globe, but M-B North America only brought the higher-trim varieties into the U.S. market.

Stateside we could get either the 2.8L fuel-injected DOHC 12V inline-six rated at 142bhp or one of two diesels: the 62hp 2.4L four banger or the 77bhp 3.0L inline five-cylinder. After 1980, only the diesels remained, with the gasoline M110 I6 dropped to keep CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) numbers up.

The early-'80s (you can tell by the yellow lenses on the fog lamps; '76-'79 cars had clear ones) Mercedes-Benz 300D in English Red in these photos would be bog-slow, with a zero-to-sixty time that struggled to crack the twenty second barrier and a top speed of something like 90mph, but they got good mileage for their time and a well-maintained diesel Benz from this era is harder to kill than a cockroach. If you couldn't get 300k miles out of one, you weren't trying, and in an era when a car was considered completely knackered when its five-digit odometer rolled over, that was nothing short of miraculous.

This one was photographed with a Nikon D800 and 24-120mm f/4 VR zoom lens in May of 2024.

1981 Volkswagen Rabbit Pickup

From 'Murrica, with love... 

It was actually Volkswagen of North America, operating from their short-lived and ill-fated Westmoreland, Pennsylvania plant who came up with the idea for an El Camino-esque minitruck based on VW Rabbit mechanicals. In fact, all the ones sold overseas were built in Pennsylvania until a second assembly line was stood up at VW's South African plant.

In the same way U.S.-market Rabbits can be told apart from world market first generation Golfs by their square headlights, so too can their pickup truck variants.

Originally, under the hood you'd find either a 1.7L SOHC fuel injected inline-4 with 78 horsepower or else a 52 horsepower 1.6L diesel. The gasoline-engined ones had a 4-speed manual while the diesel added an overdrive fifth gear. 

By being produced in their Pennsylvania plant the Rabbit Pickup avoided the "Chicken Tax" import tariffs born by imported light trucks that required odd workarounds like being imported without their beds attached, or the jump seats bolted in the beds of Subaru BRATs.

The stance on the truck in the photo, snapped in August of 2024 using a Nikon D2X & 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5G DX zoom lens, indicates that this one likely has way more than 78 horses under the hood, a supposition supported by the rorty exhaust note it emitted.

1983 Mercedes-Benz 300D

Here's a 1983-vintage W123 300D still out there racking up miles as a daily driver.

Boasting 87 bhp and a monster 127 lb/ft of stump-pulling torque in their original normally-aspirated form, the later 3.0L Benz inline five-cylinder diesels for the North American market all got turbos for '82, bumping horsepower and torque to 123hp and 181 lb/ft. They'll do 0-60 in the mid teens and top a hundred mph by a few MPH on a slight downhill with a tailwind, but they're harder to kill than a cockroach.

My dad's boss had a 240D of similar vintage, and I once had to drive it to a local service station to get a leaky tire plugged. Now, the 240D had a truly feeble 2.4L normally aspirated diesel putting out only 67 horsepower. They were painfully slow.

Anyway, I realized I was in the wrong lane at a red light and, needing to beat the panel truck next to me across the intersection, started brake-torquing it when I saw the crossing light turn yellow.

The light turned green and I side-stepped the brake pedal with the little diesel clattering away for all it was worth. The panel truck still beat me across the intersection (I'm not a hundred percent sure the driver knew it was a race) and quickly pulled enough of a lead that I got a good look at the trailer full of lawn mowers and the crowd of bemused Mexican dudes peering out of the open back of the truck.

I was so embarrassed by this humiliating defeat that I forgot to bring the receipt for the eight-buck tire repair back with me and got in trouble.