I don't know, I guess the guy really loves the W123 just wanted it to be considerably faster. A Corvette engine would be a no brainer, reliable, small, and fairly easy to put in cars it was never intended for. The restoration is immaculate, perhaps even better than when the car first left the factory.

Scroll down to the forth post. I think that is a I-5 turbo diesel from a W124, with a turbo that looks far from stock. I've seen pictures of 3.8L Merc V8s and heard about 5.6L W126 V8s going into the W123s, but that's about the most modern Mercedes engines I've heard of for the W123s. Any more modern and people usually go with cheaper American crate motors rather than plunking over $20,000 (guessing) for an AMG engine.

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1976 300D test drive (~15min vid).

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Thanks for the video. The rapidshare file storage site keeps telling me I've downloaded too much in the past hour even though I didn't download anything. I first arrived at the site using your link. I'll find a way to see the video.

I was looking around for conversions of MB cars from the 1980s. I found something at mbcoupes.com where a few of the W126 listed have been converted with Euro engines that were said to be brand new. New engines from Renntech or AMG are reputed to cost $10,000-15,000 US. I don't know what a new 5.6L Euro-spec engine from Mercedes Benz would cost or how they're even still available.

Some of the W126s still look great, but if I do a restoration and modern engine upgrade, I'd like to use a W123, preferrably a coupe. I tried to buy a 450SEL with the original 6.9 engine and I saw three different examples of the car, but they had all been abused or neglected and were left in bad, bad shape. If I find a W123, most likely I'd only opt for a current 2.8L V6 in the E280 or perhaps the 3.5L for a little more power.

Only interested in gas? I was going to suggest their new diesel V6 since the 300Ds are so common place and for the fact that the nomenclature would still work. I'm actually very interested in a 280 when I get out of college, it certainly has spunk for an engine that was designed in the 70s.

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Found this pic and thought I'd post it here.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the long-wheelbase W123 was a rather popular taxi here back in the 80's. During the last few years I've spotted a few of these, I believe they are those old taxis redone into personal "limousines". I don't quite know what to make of them...

I had not considered using a diesel, bum-man. Of course, I never looked to acquire a 300 D or other diesel variant of the W123.

The LWB of the W123 was mostly used as taxis as you said, but I haven't heard of too many redone into limousines. Ford had a limousine variant for their Granada, another of my favourites of all time. There was a Dorchester model, which was more like a taxi, and a Grosvenor model, the more luxurious limousine. I don't think the W123 LWB was really an ultra-luxury limousine. The photograph posted has a little too much restoration work in my opinion and looks like one of those SSG and Trasco-built limousines 500SEL from the 1980s.

They are used as taxis in several countries. Prince Rainier of Monaco used his one regularly - I really like the LWB W123.

Hands-down the best Mercedes-Benz ever built (together with the W116 S-Class). You could drop a nuclear bomb next to this thing and it still wouldn't fall apart.

I too have a fondness for this car. In fact, I am thinking of a W123 as my next car when the time comes. Preferably a 230E A/T.

One more thing. The W123's were never about performance, and the performance of the 280s / 280E's back in the day was "mind blowing". I would keep any W123 STOCK. No engine changes etc. Shoehorning in a V8 for the sake of making it faster takes away the charm of a W123, and generally doesn't indicate love for the car IMO.

I happened to drive the lowest W123 possible, a 1979 200D 4-speed manual. The car was obviously slow, yet that didn't bother me at all. It was the feel of the car and the way it drove that got me. Honestly, I'd be quite happy with a 55-hp / 60-hp 200D, or the even rarer 220D. I'm a W123 enthusiast, so ANY model would satisfy me, even a gas-guzzling 280TE! Speaking of which, I would love to have the US-only 300D Turbodiesel (W123) and the 300CD Diesel / 300CD Turbodiesel (C123) coupes which were only sold in the US!