two charlatans who took down small banks and knocked everybody )

Knocking off small banks...an interesting career indeed....:-)

I too like the 126's, certainly at the very bottom of their market now, they are about the last S class with pure MB lines, from a time maybe when MB made individual cars and if you wanted something fashionable you bought from elsewhere.

They are not a particularly complicated car at least in the electrical dept, but the can and do suffer rust, and in common with almost every other car on the road the first owners will not have worried about years of salt encrusted on the unprotected underside. The first signs of which will be the front wings rotting above the wrap around front bumper line.

I'm inclined to think the SEC's will fare better for retaining value in old age, and possibly the very top range SEL's, the smaller engined downspecced SE's maybe won't.

Good luck with finding a well maintained and unmolested example, that will be the big problem.

These cars are cheap for a reason, ie they are so stuffed with technical extras and features only found on this model, that any reliability hiccup gets very expensive very fast. Most cars these days are tough for the DIY mechanic, but these are a nightmare, and garage servicing isn't going to be cheap.