It was a 1974 Saturday morning in the fall. I was up early and was reading the classifieds in the Asheville Citizen Times when my eyes fell upon a 190SL for that had sat in the garage for years. 800 bucks. It did not run, but it did crank and the old gas smell overpowered the wonderful leather seats aroma. 3 minutes later I was 30 minutes from that garage that housed my dream, 4 hours later the 190SL was on the back of a car hauler coming home to me.
A brilliant young mechanic friend of mine, who would much rather work on a Chevy, put carb kits into those Solex and I was up and running.
I had been traveling in the sports car crowd there in town for a few years, but my old MGA relegated me to a status level toward the bottom rungs behind the Lotus, Porsche and the totally awesome Austin Healey 3000. But with this 190SL, faded paint and all, I moved from last to first!
To make a good long story short, I was rounding town square one day in my SL. I spotted the Healey and it's driver (along with his snooty friends) leaned against his car. It was their first sight of my SL and I watched their faces fall as they knew I now had the upper rungs of that ladder now.
Just to make my entrance clear, I dropped the SL down from 2nd to 1st, gunned that engine and popped the clutch, right in front of them.
The rear torsion bars and springs immediately were pulled from the rusted underbelly of my SL and jammed into the road. I could not pull forward and I was directly in front of the people I most wanted to one up. My only move was to back my 190 SL home, spring mounts dragging along as I went.
A few months later I was able to sell the SL to a kid out of Atlanta for about what I had in it. The entire underside of the car was a total rust out.
But, my story lives in infamy to this day in that little town, my only escape from "Pride Commeth Before a Fall" was to move away. I did.
Chip
Houston
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