But the original paint is in very nice, shape, it'll buff out and have a ceramic coat and look really really nice. So that's a good. I was going to say that's a good thing, but now i look at this, and this is way too orange peel it to be the original factory paint. So it's had some.

It's had some paint work before. No, i just discovered this this car uh. It wasn't quite as described it is what it is. I was busy when i took delivery of this thing with other things and was noticing other problems like the check engine light was on uh, the headliner in the back, all torn up.

No mention of that. So here's where the buick's been parked for the last few days and oh yeah, that too welcome to hooves garage the dumbest automotive channel in all of youtube and before you today is a total blast from the past. For me, when it comes to cars, two cars that i sold that i owned many years ago, sold before my youtube channel or right, my youtube, channel's infancy that i totally regretted selling one of them is a car that i was able to buy back by 1984. Mercedes 300 sc that i have a huge personal history with, but it also has a pretty cool history in itself and over here is a near copy of a car that i really regret.

Selling right before i started my youtube channel. It is a 1996 buick roadmaster estate wagon. Now i got the diesel back because i kept in touch with the owner and was able to buy it back when he was ready to sell and the roadmaster. Well, the old one is gone to germany.

Long gone this one just popped up in my backyard, not too far away, and i absolutely had to have it so i bought back both of the cars that i regret, selling the most. But i've told myself that i'm not going to keep both of them and really i'm going to find out if these cars really live up to the hype. You know when you get rid of something and you think about it. Man, i never should have got rid of that got rid of that car.

Well, what happens when you do buy them back? Usually, you discover the reason why you sell them and i'm going to try and figure that out today, but i'm also doing this because the car market, my personal love of cars, has changed a lot in the five plus years since i sold both of these cars. My collection has changed a lot and the car hobby has changed a lot, not just for me personally, but on a macro economic scale. Anything cool has just exploded in value, and that includes these cars. This mercedes 300 sd.

I bought for like six thousand dollars. Eight years ago and now they've exploded in value the buick roadmaster estate. I bought one of these for forty five hundred dollars in mostly mint condition over ten years ago, and now that's gone up like five times for a similar car, and the same kind of scale applies to anything exotic like i said, the 355 may be the last Affordable ferrari that i will ever buy probably ever buy just in general, because recently, like a monday, all is sold for seventy thousand dollars a 308 a lowly high mile 308 sold for 90, something almost a hundred thousand dollars. So i may be done with exotics and going back into hoopties and just be very happy doing that and these cars well, they represent a period of my life where i was very, very happy and content didn't see myself needing to own anything more than a mercedes.

300Sc, my grandmother's 500sl and then whatever i was beating around and i actually daily drove a buick roadmaster like this for years and years, was very happy doing that. So can i go back to being that old, hoovy and getting out of this crazy, crazy car hobby? That has now become a bloated ridiculous investment portfolio for some people. I started this channel with the goal of making my car payment on an acura nsx that i bought for around 30 grand and well obviously that has exploded from there. It's all possible because of you, i'm so grateful to have these cars and for it to be possible because you all watch these videos, don't get me wrong.

I am so grateful for that, but i'm also so disillusioned by the rapid increase in value of these cars. I feel bad because people wanting to get into this hobby buy something cool. It is getting so far out of reach so far out of sanity and that's because people way way richer than me are buying things as investments hoarding them, because they don't want cash right. Now they want to hold things that they can actually tangibly own to avoid inflation or whatever i don't know the market's just totally nuts and i feel bad, but the old hoopties are back, and today, i'm going to give you a tour of these soupies that i Bought a long long time ago, i'm actually doing the math wrong.

I bought one of these 14 years ago that one was about 8 years ago, but i was in mercedes dieseling for over 15 years, so i own similar cars like this for a very long time and then why i ended up selling them. I'm probably not going to make the decision today on which one to sell, but i'm going to start to try and narrow it down, because i'm not going to keep both, but before we tour the cars that i was able to buy. Back. I'd like to thank policy genius for sponsoring today's video and being a continued sponsor to the channel this winter blast in the last week, which had people in ditches up over curbs or worse, showed us how important insurance is and policy genius is here to help policy Genius can save you tons of money, as is america's leading online insurance marketplace so far has helped over 30 million people and policy news works for its customers, not the insurance company.

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So that's why i made this one so seeing this 1984 mercedes 300 sd again, it's like the car, never left or five years, just blinked by it, looks exactly the same. Unfortunately, i've aged quite a bit in the six or so years, but this car looks exactly the same and i was able to buy it back because of a trick with the seller. I do this all the time when it comes to cars. I love that i'm selling, i always tell the buyers to.

Let me know when they're ready to sell it, maybe years down the line i'll be in a position to want to buy it back, and it has worked a few times and it did work in the case of this car, a 1984 mercedes 300 sd. That was the culmination of over a decade of mercedes and diesel enthusiasm. For me, i spent all my money fixing this car sourcing parts really rare parts to make this thing. Well, the ultimate mercedes diesel now the first one i ever bought was in 2007 on ebay.

I bought sign on the scene, flew out to colorado and drove it back. So i was doing this before. Uh youtube did exist back then. It was definitely before i had the cushion of youtube to take these financial blows and it was a huge mess.

I sold that car after repainting. It had several over the years, and this was the last one. It was also petrol, blue, green metallic, and it has quite a cool story. Now you can see it has the euro headlights, which i source when i bought this thing.

It was totally stock, but i went through and got all the cool parts for mercedes that i really like on this 126 chassis, including these lawrence or lo, wheels which are very similar to the factor wheels a little bit bigger in diameter, but they're pretty much an Obtainium now they're worth probably more than what i paid for the car many years ago. These deep dish really cool lo wheels, but one thing i didn't do is i didn't change the factory ride height which, on these cars they were really really high. If i'm keeping this, i'm probably going to lower it at least an inch to give it a more well euro trash, look, i see uh looks like they chipped the refinish on it a little bit, though i had these wheels refinished. But if you look at this thing it is totally original paint.

I had the pinstripe replaced and some of the pinstripe is coming off. There's one thin spot on the hood, which was there when i got it, but this is a totally original survivor, even the seat, which you know on the passenger side, it was actually kind of split, so i was able to source an original seat bottom. So it looks exactly right, but totally totally stock in here, with one obvious exception, and that is the four-speed manual transmission that i was able to find from a euro 300d a 123 chassis, and i had the car wizard. Yes, the car wizard when his beard of knowledge was very short, swap it.

One thing: that's crazy. This car still has is this sticker from the cars and coffee at the concord, amelia island. I've been back several years now. As a judge, we filmed car trek there a bunch, but this is from 2016 when i went with the car wizard.

This was really our first trip together, a road trip in this car from kansas to florida, and it's how we really got to know each other traded stories, our life stories. We had never done that before and probably cemented our friendship for life driving in this car to florida and at the time the youtube channel was just an idea. The car wizard name hadn't even popped in my head. Yet, let's look under the hood, which you have the mighty 617 inline five turbo diesel a pretty much unbreakable engine.

They will leak from everywhere and drive broken until the end of time. Keeping on top of the leaks is certainly a challenge. They never ever. Look like this when you pop the hood of one of these.

Usually it's just coated in black sludge, which is pretty normal, but this one doesn't leak a drop and it took a lot of effort for me to get the car to this state. I even went totally nutty and got a polished valve cover for it, which is now showing its age. It needs to be re-polished, but, as you can see, a completely pristine engine bay, but other than the complicated vacuum system which controls things like from the door locks to the transmission shifts, it's all over the place here at the egr up here. This is a very simple, very easy to work on car and i actually used to work on cars a lot and learned on these mercedes diesels.

This is the first car that i ever bought with my own money. A mercedes diesel, like i talked about on ebay for 2500 bucks before that it was cars that were given to me, because i was a very lucky kid growing up and well after spending some big big repair bills at shops. I kind of learned how to do things myself, so i feel like i could do anything head to toe on this car. I know it very very well, and it is certainly in my comfort zone.

It feels really good to have one of these back and this one outside of the moz, isn't only a really nice original survivor, which i started with. It has a ridiculous level of documentation that i have never seen on a mercedes diesel. Usually it's like a blue chip, collector car. That has something like this, which it's all still in the trunk you see here, i put a copy of the original window sticker.

This is back when i actually had time to do things like make books before kids in youtube original brochure from 1984., which you can see when the original owners ordered it. They actually said this was their number one choice: petrol, blue, green metallic. You can see their notes in there. You can also see things like the salesman has his normal business card there, but also this fancy gold hard metal business card.

Here i mean, if you handed this to somebody back in 1984, you were really someone a metal gold business card, but everything from european delivery, all the specs and then also they have all the budgeting here, i'll get to it in a little bit. They're actually cross shopping this between the diesel mercedes and the cadillac fleetwood diesel. Thank goodness they didn't go with that with modified 350 diesel and there it is they're price shopping on the cadillac and the mercedes benz, along with their trade-in. How much it would cost to finance, and even though it was way way more to have the mercedes diesel, they made the wise choice and went with it.

They owned the car for 30 years before trading it in, and then i bought it. Here's the original window sticker all the pre-delivery inspections, the original temporary tag, absolutely insane all the hang tags for the inside like how to work the automatic climate control. All this stuff was still in the car when they joined mbca and even some old accessory catalogs, which i was able to look through to find things that i wanted. For my car, it became a scavenger hunt of me spending all the money.

I had finding cool things for my mercedes sl and my 300 sd look at all this old amg stuff. You could buy back in the day, but not only all that including here's what they bought a mini cooper. They traded it in for a mini, but also a complete service history. Everything a to z from this car's cradle until absolutely now, including some wizard receipts in here for a transmission swap and such it's all, 100 documented.

So this is one of the best documented mercedes diesels in existence. Oh and how could i forget the the heck and blend rear here? So this is the factory tail lights, this screws into the license plate holes and then it looks like you have a one-piece tail light, which is a trend that is certainly coming back now looks so dang cool. So let's take this thing for a drive. It's certainly a throwback you're, the pedopater and we're off a little new to this stick shift thing, so i still have the parking brake set got ta, wait for that diesel glow plug light to go off before you pop it over orange light there off off with You and there's the nice pitter patter of a mercedes diesel, but this one being special, a turbo diesel with a four-speed manual.

This car certainly aged way better than me in the last six years, or so i mean just feels exactly the same. The only thing i probably need to fix is the horsehair padding the seats. Yes, they put horsehair for padding in these. It falls out disintegrates and then you have kind of a bouncy not as comfy seat as you should, and then you get that sort of horsey smell in the car.

Pretty easy fix, not too expensive, but the four speed definitely wakes this car up quite a bit. But only 120 horsepower, so it's never going to win any drag races. That's 40. shift.

50.. I mean you, you got to be patient. I can't put it in fourth probably about this. Speed is just fine if i do put it in sooner it'll kind of chug like a truck, because it is basically a truck engine god.

This thing feels so good and a modern s-class. They just cannot replicate this kind of feel, nor do they really want to. They want something that feels like a smaller, more sporty more fun car, even in a big old s-class, got to make a tight u-turn here into the ditch something you really wouldn't want to do in a modern s-class either it's the same thing with the buick roadmaster Luxury back then, it was defined by how comfortable the car was, how it felt how it insulated you from the outside elements and the feel of the road and, of course, the build quality which this car was built very very well. It doesn't have hardly any technology in it, an automatic climate control that people really didn't like, but it sort of works, a radio becker, grand prix, electronic cassette power windows.

Obviously, and that's about it, you have a slightly adjustable seat here, electric, but i mean really not much that wasn't what you bought these things for you bought them for the build quality you bought them for the greatness, and this car certainly certainly is great. As for what i could do with this car, well, really, not all that much, there's little things to fix here and there i could lower the suspension, but then mostly it's done and then it's sort of a monument to a past which is long gone for me As much as i pine, occasionally for my bachelor days and being able to get in my car this car and just go and do whatever i want when i want those days are long gone and i sort of did everything that i could do more or less In a mercedes diesel still, i think this is the coolest mercedes diesel ever and if i ever was going to own one. It would be this one. If i got rid of it, i surely would be done with the whole vintage diesel mercedes game altogether.

The buick roadmaster, though well, i kind of left that open-ended and there are some things that i've always wanted to do to a roadmaster. But i didn't back then, because well it was my daily driver. So let's go take a look at the buick. Ah, yes, so while this mercedes was the end of an era for mercedes, the 140 chassis that replaced, it was like a billion dollars developed on it.

Certainly a more technology advanced vehicle, technologically advanced vehicle, but still kind of. In the same vein, of course, they got cheapened after that. The buick, really, though, is the last of the breed. The last of the rear wheel drive full-size cars from general motors.

You had the caprice you had this, and then you had, of course, the impala and the cadillac fleetwood, and that all ended in 1996, the year of this car and it being the last year. It is the collector's edition. Now this thing is fresh off the truck and it went through a lot of salt and ice, but this is the original paint only 80 000 miles, and it is very, very nice and being a southern car is completely rust free. But that does mean the elements were really hard on this.

Well thaw: wood paneling! You can see these are metal pieces of trim and then this is just 3m sticker that was applied to it and when i bought mine well 14 15 years ago, it was in way nicer shape than this, but it was a long time ago. I bought it from the estate of the original owner. He was a world war ii veteran and it was up in nebraska, so it wasn't as nice as this up underneath, but it still had 80 000 miles. Just like this one same color and i drove it.

Basically, daily drove it for many many years took it on multiple trips cross country, california up highway. One. The first time of me going to monterey, was in that car california, not for car week, but just to visit took it to florida several times it was my go everywhere, do anything car and it was really practical and reliable for that now. I did always want to build it up to be some crazy machine, but because it was my daily driver i couldn't, and by the time it wasn't my daily driver anymore.

I couldn't afford to keep it because my car dealership was sort of failed and closed and i was starting a new business venture. So i really didn't have the extra money to play with cars. I had to choose between the two of these cars. Basically - and i chose to keep the mercedes diesel back then, but now well, i pined for the roadmasters the only car that i've sold as it went away on the truck.

I cried as it left. There are photos of me that i took because it was so stupid of me blubbering, like a baby when that car left on the truck, and i tried to track it down. Unfortunately, when the seller wanted to sell, i did the same thing: hey when you're ready to sell this car. Let me know he wanted to do it within like six months and i still didn't have the money to buy it back, so it got sold to germany exported to germany according to the carfax, and that means well, it's long gone i'll, never see it again.

So this is the next best thing and it is a pretty nice example. I'm gon na have to do the wood you see going around to the back here. It has faded quite a bit in the back. Of course, all the trim is gone.

So all this needs to be redone, but the original paint is in very nice, shape, it'll buff out and have a ceramic coat and look really really nice. So that's a good. I was gon na say that's a good thing, but now i look at this, and this is way too orange-pili to be the original factory paint. So it's had some.

It's had some paint work before. No, i just discovered this this car uh. It wasn't quite as described as i wanted it to be. I asked the seller if there were any cosmetic issues or pain issues, and he didn't really remark on me.

Oh yeah, it's it's been totally repainted. Oh crap, okay! Well, um! Anyway, it's a nice rust-free southern car, but these are very, very cool, so you have. These pillow tops super comfortable seats. I absolutely love them they're about the most comfortable seats in existence.

This one only 82 000 miles and they really are the last of a breed. Here you can see you have a nice comfy back seat and then you have a rear-facing third row and you can fold all of this down and it becomes a very practical work vehicle. You can haul a sheet of drywall or plywood, for example, and the rear air ride load. Leveling suspension would keep the suspension up in the air, so you can actually get a trailer hitch which i did and tow with it, which i also did i towed like a volvo p1800 back from florida and a youtube series that didn't last very long.

Just just one episode kind of my own first stab at car trek over 10 years ago, but what makes these kind of special is the end of the run from 94 to 96, the motor that was in these the normal 305, i believe, was done away with. They didn't have that engine anymore, so they're like well. What should we use and well, they actually used a doozy in this thing it is the iron head lt1, so like a corvette having the lt1 engine except this is iron heads not aluminum head, so less horsepower, but still lots of power for a car of this Era and this size, it makes it actually pretty fun to drive sort of this car's claim to fame, and it just came off the truck and i'm already noticing yeah. This is definitely been painted in sort of a cheap, quick kind of paint, job style.

Where there's the masking line, the paint peeling right there, which is pretty darn disappointing? So it's one thing to have to re-wood this thing, which i knew i was going to do, but now the paint it doesn't look like it's really worth saving, so i may have to repaint it as well. Maybe it'll buff out a little better and get all this salt and nastiness off there, but the fact that it's not original paint you're buying an 80 000 mile car you're hoping it is well kind of a bummer. But let's, let's take it for a drive. I mean you kind of expect this kind of stuff.

You buy one back, it's going to be good, you buy another one. Well, it doesn't meet your expectations. That seems pretty normal with my channel in the cars that i buy a coin flip on whether they're good or not, but maybe it drives better. I really haven't driven it anywhere other than up my driveway.

So, let's take it on his maiden voyage and see well how it drives. Everything that needed to be said has already been said about that car. It has won the challenge on the show there. It sits i'm still taking in the paint job thing, but you know it is what it is.

I was busy when i took delivery of this thing with other things and was noticing other problems like the check engine light was on uh the headliner in the back. All torn up no mention of that and some other issues. I actually did text the seller and be like hey this thing's way rougher than i thought, and there are a lot of things that weren't disclosed and he was kind of like well. You didn't ask, and i did ask if there were any cosmetic or mechanical issues which a check engine light is certainly an issue.

So here's where the buick's been parked for the last few days and yeah that too a torn up, headliner and dinged trim and scratches on the wood grain is certainly an issue but uh his response to that is it's all minor and if you were expecting a Perfect one, you should have gone and spent 17 to 20 000 for a perfect one, which i mean that is kind of true, but in the world of these cars they're, either perfect and original and expensive or they're. Not that there's really not an in-between. Unfortunately, it would take a ten thousand dollar. You know total sand down the bare metal or more paint job to get one.

Looking like an original factory car, which you would never ever do with one of these, maybe it'll look better once it's clean and a good buff on it. But it looks like a pretty cheap paint. Job fingers crossed there and then there's redoing the wood, which is a lot of pain and expense. It all comes off in little specks and pieces.

It's really hard to do so. I probably will have every bit of that into this car and it'll be worth probably less than what i paid for it, because it's not an original car and it wasn't super super nice to begin with, and you can just tell the guy did apologize for me Feeling disappointed, but i could tell he's probably a little peeved at me at the same time because well he was proud of this car and did like it and didn't want to sell it. He said he had to sell it, unfortunately, so i feel for him in that sense, because i went through it myself, but it's also my fault, because i didn't go down in person. This car was only three hours away from me and because of my barrett-jackson gig and then a winter storm and child care and snow days and all the other stuff i had to get done.

I couldn't get down there. He wanted to get paid, which i understand because it was over a week, so i paid him and then just had the car shipped up and if i had looked at it in person, i would have let him keep his deposit and totally walked. But i'm talking about this car like being a total disaster, i mean it. It doesn't feel like a disaster.

It still drives every bit as good as say the one i had a long time ago, but this is the first time taking it out on the open road for me. So let's see yeah, it's got the lt1 power posi track rear a little bit faster than 300 sd you're getting this, and it feels like i'm driving a modern lamborghini or something well until you try and make a turn. There's that boat ride quality. Oh man! Oh, i haven't driven one of these since, since i sold mine they're, so good jeez, wow, probably being a little too hard on the seller here, because i mean what do you expect, i asked two questions i said: does it have any other cosmetic issues other than The faded wood outer trim and he listed like the headliner, was falling down and then glued back up, not that it was shredded back there and also didn't have any mechanical issues and was the air cold and he said no, it it's fine.

So it wasn't me doing my due diligence. I could have asked for a walk around video. I could have asked for a bunch of different things, but it kind of snowballed because i planned on going down and seeing the car in person and then well literally. Snowballs happened and a trip for work and all that stuff, and i couldn't so that's that's why i didn't and here's the same u-turn as i did with the diesel and surprisingly tight, maybe a little tighter on the turning radius than the diesel, even though it is A larger car - that's that's pretty darn impressive, but the good news about it.

Having all these issues is it's a project, so i can actually do some things with this car. Make multiple videos go through the process of making it really cool again and doing the things that i always wanted to do to a roadmaster, which was hot rodded back in the day? When i had this thing, it was my daily driver. I brought my daughter home from the hospital in my buick roadmaster estate. I really couldn't hop it up because i was driving it every single day.

So if i want to do it, i can do it to this car. So now it's the 94's turn one other than the craggers is bone stock and the black one has the shift kit and boy. Does it make a difference? Okay, i feel a little better after driving this thing, the paint i mean the paint's, really not that bad. The factory paint on these things weren't that good to begin with anyway, so it's actually kind of accurate.

But what would you do which car would you keep? Would you keep a roadmaster and have another project on your hands or keep well the culmination of years of knowledge and the actual car that you owned, that you really regretted selling i'm going to take my time deciding. But let me know in the comments and even if i do sell one or the other, it's going to take some reconditioning on both for them to bring well top dollar. So i can at least recover my investment but uh if you're into the woody. I do have road master t-shirts, hoovie's garage, woody t-shirts.

If you love wood grain. Well, you want it on your body. It is now on your body. Don't forget huvi's garage stickers, which only five dollars get you a really cool, little hoofy's garage sticker to hide some hooptiness.

So you got ta blemish on your body or just to show your car body uh, also to show hoovey's garage pride which i'm starting to see. Some because you all are tweeting me like you're supposed to when you put them on your car tweet me at hooves garage, take a look at some of these mechanics layer. Four and barry brown on the back of their trucks, also aviator griffin on his rav4, and it looks like some more trucks by ryan. So, thank you very much for that very cool show your hoovies garage pride and buy a hooptie t-shirt or, if you don't like hoopties.

Well: here's the mustang gt350 t-shirt, which mine has a little salsa stain on it from lunch, but very cool, well-designed t-shirts which, with an over shirt, it still shows the mustang. Thank you so much for watching roadmaster, baitin and eastland.