he 190 was built to last with fine quality steelThe grille-mounted three-pointed star was nicked years ago, obviously.
Couldn't resist a drive in the old girl.
The W201 (its model designation) comes from an era, crucially, just before Mercedes started to get it all wrong in the mid-to-late nineties.
A period of such hideous wrongdoings that it still haunts the company to this day.
The 190 was built to last with fine quality steel, high-grade fixtures and fittings and an attention to detail that concreted the brand's global reputation.
For a 23-yearold car it still smells fantastic inside. The waft of old Merc interior is impossible to describe and equally difficult to trace but it's something about the seat fabrics, the carpets and the dashboard material.
Just writing this, I can still smell the smell. It's a real nose-worm.
The driving position ergonomics are a bit strange but, there again, so's my mate. You get a big diameter steering wheel, big pedals and a small but firmly-sprung seat - tailor-made for ample, teutonic cheeks. The window buttons are either side of the gear lever. There's just one steering columnmounted stalk to operate indicators, lights and wipers.
The key slots into the dash on the left of the steering wheel. Odd.
The old girl's nudging 150,000 miles but this is small beer for one of these things. A big, 2.6-litre straight-six petrol engine provides the forward thrust and its lazy state of tune means another 150,000 miles without hiccups is entirely likely.
The engine idles like a sewing machine. It burns no oil and pulls like a train with just the slightest touch of accelerator pedal.
The gearbox is showing its age, though. Up-shifts shunt home with a bit of a jolt, particularly under heavy load. In my brief test drive (tight sod didn't leave me with much fuel) I soon learned not to hurry and let the 'box shift up on a light throttle
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