Rallying my Mercedes. Need opinions

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CCRAWFORD_gtx47
Honestly the best advice anyone could give you is to rent a car for an event so you can get a feel for the sport and to make sure it's something you actually want to get into.

"make sure it's something you actually want to get into."?????? This does not compute. I have yet to find some one that has turned a wheel on stage and said,"hmm, you know what, that wasn't that much fun. Screw rally." I'm sure there are a few people out there, maybe even four, that have thought this, but I haven't met them.

Haha. I have met people that the stress of breaking and then having to fix the car is too much for them. Now they are road racers because the risk of putting it into a tree isn't there. Rally is an expensive sport.

Going to an actual rally is a good idea.

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Robert.

"You are way too normal to be on Rally Anarchy." Eddie Fiorelli.

Winter is coming...

I mean, go to http://wrchistory.com/cars.html and enter in mercedes and 280. Out of all the ones tracked there (9011 cars), 21 of them have been 280's. And only 59 of any Mercedes model out of 9011 have been rally cars.

That's a mighty small market for anyone to make parts for.

Sharp looking car you have there though....

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Kirk Coughlin
Woodbury, MN and River Falls, WI

Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est.

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CCRAWFORD_gtx47
Honestly the best advice anyone could give you is to rent a car for an event so you can get a feel for the sport and to make sure it's something you actually want to get into.

For the most part rentals are going to cost you a 1/3rd of the price of a car you could just buy and if you for some reason hate it, can sell it for most of what you paid for it.

The clip
Around here you will pick up who the right people are to listen to. However, when I was trying to buy a cheap Toiletta Turdsell someone around here gave me sound advice. He showed me the clip and I was sold as I can do this cheaply and quickly.

Wait! There is someone on RA giving sound advice?!?

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Robert.

"You are way too normal to be on Rally Anarchy." Eddie Fiorelli.

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Rallymech
Wait! There is someone on RA giving sound advice?!?

I can't take this! I need the chaos.... I'm out!

If u market that car to someone say in CT. U might get a decent penny for it. Then get a rally car

as i recall, the suspension on these have the spring and shock independent for front and rear. It would make suspension work... awkward

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First Rally: 2010 First RallyX: 2004 (a bunch)
Driver (0), Co-Driver (7)
Organizer (3), Volunteer (3)
Cars Built (2.5), Engines Blown (2) Cages Built (0) # of rotations (3.5)
Last Updated, Apr 9, 2023

In all seriousness.....welcome but...

Not a great choice. Yes it can be rallied but there is little support or knowledge for it in our sport. You would have to develop a lot of stuff or run with less than wonderful parts. I'd suspect many of the Mercs that rally do so in tarmac events in Europe. We all like to see different stuff on stage but we disdain a lost cause or someone getting part way thru a build and giving up.

I'm sure JV can build good struts and likely find brakes that work. You'll probably burn up a bunch of his time doing so and probably only for one car. The transmission thing can be worked out, again at a cost. You can rally an automatic but probably not at a competitive level. You won't have a lot of spare parts or help at service..something to consider.

The best answer may be to sell the Merc at whatever price it gets interest and move on. "Seattle" has an abundance of RWD Volvo and BMWs that can be a better choice for rally. I'm not a merkur fan but even a Mustang is a better option than your current choice. Small pickups can work also. Lots of better stuff to explore.

Either way, you'll find the rally community pretty fun and a great bunch of people and we will try to help. Don't let the little kerfuffles on here make you think otherwise.

dont buy a vw mk1 either. they dont like meeting other cars nose to nose "some" folks on here will give you a ration of shit too. but in all fairness, after listening to a bunch of folks in person and ignore JVL totally, i am now looking for a suitable car to build in the future. Some reason i keep typing V 240 in Craigslist.

Well this ain't supposed to be a demo derby.. and that was a crappy incident for sure.

Funny, the guy seems in earnest and yet there's not a lot of concrete advice here. My recommendations, for what they're worth:

1. Buy a built, sorted-out car. You never make your money back from building, and you have all the sorting out to do which often results in DNFs, which are a poor idea when you're starting out as they can be discouraging and you don't build experience.

2. Front-wheel-drive sets you up with good base skills if you want to go to AWD later. RWD may be more fun and intuitive initially but once you learn FWD you'll see why almost all the leading 2WD cars are FWD now (flame away; I've raced them all).

3. VW Golf MkII remains the simple, cheap, reliable, available, supported, resellable formula.

4. The PNW still has a lot of semi-vintage RWD cars and support. I think this is because there are just more Volvos and XR4Tis still alive there than anywhere else in the country. And there are no snow rallies, and there are some pretty fast rallies. So there's a support network for those. But beware of cars that are hard to find parts for. See: Colt, Dodge. Consider the BMW E30 or E36 option if you're really keen on RWD. There is some support, junkyards have parts, and they're reasonably sturdy. Unless you're intentionally trying to rally a vintage car, I wouldn't go rarer/older. And I still have Volvo and Colt rally cars.

5. Spend only a fraction of your expected budget on the car itself. Be ready to walk away from it in a twisted ball of metal in the woods. It's a tool, not the point in itself. And have fun.

ACP

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ACP
It's a tool, not the point in itself.

ACP

Good piece of advice. So many people lose sight of this and I think it's part of the reason so many projects get out of control and unfinished.