1993 Mercedes 300te Wagon W/ Low Miles Excellent Condition on 2040-cars

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Highlights from the Goodwood Festival of Speed, including the McLaren P1 and a Ford Transit running the hill

The sole purpose of this post is as a time-waster, and since you shouldn't have to work to waste time, we've done it for you. In the numerous videos below you'll find cars that have lately been in the news tramping all over the grounds of Lord March's estate in Goodwood, England.
There's the McLaren P1 heading up the hill, the Jaguar Project 7, then a casually-driven Porsche 917 followed by an even-more-casually-driven Porsche 956, topped off by a Porsche 936 that is anything but casually driven. The next round is the flame-spitting Peugeot 405 T16 Pikes Peak from Climb Dance, a camera mounted on the Peugeot RCZ R after it showing you what the whole, uninterrupted run up the hill looks like. For a real head-turner, we couldn't embed it but there's Andy Reid blasting up the hill in a Ford Transit Supervan with a Cosworth 3000 V6 engine.
The modern racing contingent has Allan McNish doing the hill in the Audi R18 e-tron quattro he used to win Le Mans and Lewis Hamilton making lots of tire smoke in the Mercedes-AMG Petronas MGP-W02. For comparison, that's followed by Nick Heidfeld's record-setting run up the hill in 1999 in the McLaren MP4/14 . The classic racing contingent is headlined by 71-year-old Giacomo Agostini on an MV Agusta.

This or That: Mercedes S-Class 350SD vs. 2003 Jaguar XJR [w/poll]

Budget. It's a wretched word, whether you're going out to eat, shipping for a new outfit or, more relevant to today's discussion, buying a car. Massive marketing machines have convinced us, as a population, to buy the best you can afford, repercussions be damned – If you've saved up some money, spend it! All of it, on whatever it is that currently sits atop your personal Amazon wishlist, be it a Timex that takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin', a $17,000 Gold Apple Watch or a $60,000 Rolex Cosmograph Daytona. But what if the best you can afford is... say, $12,815? For that price, you can buy a brand-new 2015 Nissan Versa (including destination), assuming you're happy with zero options and a manual transmission. For that price, you'll get standard air conditioning, a CD player and... well, a warranty. Pretty sensible choice, Captain Frugal. But also ridiculously uninspired. And so that brings us to today's edition of This or That, in which two Autoblog editors pick differing sides of an argument and duke it out to see which one of us can convince you, dear reader, is better. Or at least less wrong. You be the judge. As a refresher, I'm two-and-two on these challenges, having lost the first and second editions before storming back in rounds three and four. Today, as alluded to above, we decided to throw our collective brainpower (oh lord, what have we done?) at what may be the single most difficult question currently confounding the best minds our planet has to offer: What is the best used used luxury car you can buy for the price of a 2015 Nissan Versa? Shall we meet our contenders? Allow me to introduce you to the most perfect luxury car money can buy (assuming the amount of money you're holding is equal to the amount of the cheapest new car currently sold in America, the Nissan Versa). My pick is the 1991 Mercedes-Benz S-Class. Not just any S-Class, but the legendary W126, which was produced between 1979 and 1992. And not just any W126, either, but one powered by a 3.5-liter turbodiesel engine. And with that, I send the argument to my esteemed colleague, Associate Editor Chris Bruce. Bruce: Jeremy, we had over $12,000 to budget for this challenge, and the best you can manage is a 24-year-old diesel Mercedes? I love oil-burners as much as any other auto writer with their mountains of torque and huge cruising range, but you're making this too easy on me. Also, you're really choosing a brown, diesel, German luxury sedan?

Online Find of the Day: Lexus-engined Mercedes pickup is a vintage hybrid

You have to love someone who gets incredibly committed to a very weird idea. What you see for sale here is a right-hand drive 1971 Mercedes-Benz 220D in South Africa, but this old Mercedes is now converted into a pickup, complete with bed cover, and there's big secret under the hood, too.
The pickup conversion appears well done based on seller Sedgefield Classic Cars' photos. Even the tonneau cover fits well. You could almost believe that this Mercedes lived its life as a Chevrolet El Camino-like pickup from the very beginning.
However, the rear-quarters conversion might not be the weirdest thing about this Mercedes. The original diesel is gone from the engine bay in favor of a Lexus V8. It seems really odd to pop the hood and find a Japanese mill in this German car, but the photos make it look like a fairly well performed swap. So, bravo to the crazy thinking. According to the seller speaking to Autoblog by email, "as far as we can establish, this was done a few years ago, with all Lexus components."