1
00:01:59,900 --> 00:02:00,800
Hi!

2
00:02:00,900 --> 00:02:03,100
We took the "whales" out of winter hibernation,

3
00:02:03,200 --> 00:02:05,700
I will say a couple of things about every 
one of them now,

4
00:02:05,800 --> 00:02:13,200
And after that I'll review one of them. It 
is going to be the car that has been with 
me for more than a decade and I have the 
most memories with.

5
00:02:13,600 --> 00:02:16,300
This is an S600 that was imported from Spain,

6
00:02:16,400 --> 00:02:22,300
It is barely just a facelifted model, and 
by that I mean the car was manufactured in 
the life cycle impulse transition,

7
00:02:22,700 --> 00:02:30,600
It has the new style bumpers, it's got the 
sunroof, the doorcards are also the new versions,

8
00:02:30,700 --> 00:02:38,400
However it still has the little reverse rods, 
we can also call them reversing aid as well.

9
00:02:38,700 --> 00:02:42,800
And it also has the newer, coil on plug style 
ignition M120 engine in it.

10
00:02:43,900 --> 00:02:50,900
By the way this car is waiting for a smaller 
renovation, we might make a video series 
about that.

11
00:02:51,900 --> 00:02:58,500
It only has smaller issues, such as the wood 
trim being burnt by the sun at a couple spots 
due to it being a Spanish car,

12
00:02:58,600 --> 00:03:02,600
It only has minor things to do, apart from 
them it is a great little car.

13
00:03:03,300 --> 00:03:08,600
This next one is an S320, poverty spec, base 
model,

14
00:03:08,700 --> 00:03:12,400
So much that it came with a manual transmission 
from factory, which is very rare for W140s.

15
00:03:12,500 --> 00:03:18,900
Cloth seats, they were the cheapest option. 
The only extra it has is air conditioning 
and literally nothing else apart from that.

16
00:03:19,000 --> 00:03:28,100
This is very early year car, I think either 
from 1991 or 92. It will soon become eligible 
for becoming an old timer.

17
00:03:28,200 --> 00:03:33,000
It is in great condition, it has a great 
suspension,

18
00:03:33,600 --> 00:03:37,100
It is a well sorted car all around, it's 
a unique rarity.

19
00:03:37,600 --> 00:03:42,700
Moving on, this is one of my favorites, the 
exact opposite of this S320,

20
00:03:43,000 --> 00:03:47,500
It is a 600SEL Lorinser, if I remember correctly 
it was imported from Japan,

21
00:03:47,900 --> 00:03:54,400
And apart from a couple things it has been 
spec'd with every single thing Mercedes has 
offered back then.

22
00:03:54,500 --> 00:04:01,200
What it doesn't have is the motorized table 
in the back that would fold down from the 
passenger seat,

23
00:04:01,300 --> 00:04:08,200
And also, the rear bench is not split up. 
But it's more of a preference than an upgrade 
question.

24
00:04:08,300 --> 00:04:16,600
However it has a champagne fridge at the 
back seats, what it also has is a pretty 
rare and unique extra, the leather wrapped 
dashboard with stitching,

25
00:04:17,200 --> 00:04:20,300
And pretty much all the electronics that 
manufacturers could do back then.

26
00:04:20,800 --> 00:04:22,000
This next one is a coupe,

27
00:04:22,100 --> 00:04:24,000
It's the only 2 door in our collection,

28
00:04:24,300 --> 00:04:27,000
An S500, still a pre-facelift model.

29
00:04:27,100 --> 00:04:30,300
Moderately spec'd, the whole interior is 
blue leather,

30
00:04:30,600 --> 00:04:34,300
But it also has soft close doors, Bose sound 
system, etc...

31
00:04:34,700 --> 00:04:37,300
It is a great car, needs a detailing,

32
00:04:37,400 --> 00:04:41,700
But apart from that this is ready and finished.

33
00:04:42,600 --> 00:04:48,000
Then here is the main car of the video, the 
S600 Drift Taxi, we'll get back to this later.

34
00:04:48,300 --> 00:04:58,000
This next one is also an S320, "The SUV", 
I think it's been at least 6-7 years since 
we converted it to look like this.

35
00:04:58,100 --> 00:05:06,400
Basically what we've done is to put a manual 
trans in it, put S600 stock springs in it 
which made it sit this high on their own!

36
00:05:07,900 --> 00:05:14,800
It has a welded diff, this bull bar, mirror 
protectors, and that's all!

37
00:05:16,700 --> 00:05:20,700
Onto the last car in the line, this is a 
S420,

38
00:05:20,800 --> 00:05:27,000
We initially bought it to break for parts, 
but then we cut the roof off for fun, to 
see how it would look.

39
00:05:27,100 --> 00:05:33,200
I even drove it on the streets for a couple 
weeks on dealer plates. Awesome feeling!

40
00:05:33,700 --> 00:05:36,800
Sadly ever since it's just been put away 
and we haven't done anything with it,

41
00:05:37,300 --> 00:05:46,600
It isn't really finished, where the pillars 
have been cut, it is pretty rough, so it's 
not looking great aesthetically...

42
00:05:46,700 --> 00:05:50,000
But at least we've made it.

43
00:07:12,000 --> 00:07:12,900
Was it good?

44
00:07:13,000 --> 00:07:13,500
Yeah!

45
00:07:16,700 --> 00:07:23,300
As usual, let's look at a carVertical report, 
this time about an S-Classe, since we're 
surrounded by them anyways.

46
00:07:24,000 --> 00:07:26,200
Here it shows that vehicle has been damaged 
before,

47
00:07:27,500 --> 00:07:30,700
It was first registered in the United States 
in 2017,

48
00:07:31,400 --> 00:07:35,300
Then it went to Poland in early 2020,

49
00:07:36,200 --> 00:07:40,900
And then from there it came to Hungary in 
02.2022.

50
00:07:41,000 --> 00:07:43,600
Here it was taken to a technical inspection.

51
00:07:43,700 --> 00:07:45,200
Let's take a look at the damage.

52
00:07:45,700 --> 00:07:47,200
It lists two incidents,

53
00:07:47,300 --> 00:07:50,700
The first one in 02.2019, where the rear 
end got damaged,

54
00:07:50,800 --> 00:07:55,900
The other one in 01.2020, this time both 
the rear and front end got smashed.

55
00:07:56,100 --> 00:07:59,300
And here are the photos, it got its rear 
brutally destroyed,

56
00:08:00,200 --> 00:08:04,400
It's unbelievable that they can recover a 
car from such state!

57
00:08:05,100 --> 00:08:08,800
And two years later you can see the car here 
in an immaculate condition,

58
00:08:08,900 --> 00:08:13,800
Nonetheless you cannot see from the pictures 
that this car been smashed from behind previously.

59
00:08:14,300 --> 00:08:22,000
If you want to check your current, or desired 
car, use the link in the description to get 
a 20% discount.

60
00:08:22,600 --> 00:08:25,500
We started building this car in 2010,

61
00:08:26,100 --> 00:08:34,400
Here’s how the idea came: I was using W124s 
to go to these like amateur rally and rallysprint 
events held on airports,

62
00:08:34,600 --> 00:08:41,200
They had M104 engines, quite a lot of them 
gave up and they weren't powerful enough.

63
00:08:41,800 --> 00:08:50,500
We had been breaking W140s like this regularly 
at that time and we figured why not convert 
an S600 into a racecar.

64
00:08:50,600 --> 00:09:01,700
We started taking one apart, we gutted the 
interior basically, we put in a cage and 
a pair of bucket seats.

65
00:09:01,800 --> 00:09:08,500
Then came the question of transmission as 
the S600 has only ever been made with an 
auto trans.

66
00:09:08,600 --> 00:09:13,400
There have been no manual gearbox solutions 
beforehand,

67
00:09:13,500 --> 00:09:25,700
After lots of thinking we ended up squeezing 
in a BMW gearbox, a 6-speed box out of a 
diesel E60 530D,

68
00:09:25,900 --> 00:09:33,300
In a way that we cut off its original bell 
housing and welded it together with a bell 
housing taken from an original S600 automatic 
transmission.

69
00:09:33,400 --> 00:09:43,000
We got a fully custom flywheel and clutch 
made for it and it all came together nicely. 
We also had to cut and modify the drive shaft 
to fit.

70
00:09:44,200 --> 00:09:50,900
The drivetrain pretty much was done with 
these, the rear diff is factory W140, maybe 
it's a bit shorter than the original S600 
one,

71
00:09:51,400 --> 00:09:59,300
I think the original one was 2.6:1 and this 
one is around 3.07:1, so it is not a lot 
shorter in ratios.

72
00:09:59,400 --> 00:10:02,800
The diff is welded, but the axles and all 
the rest are stock.

73
00:10:02,900 --> 00:10:10,000
The steering angle is also unmodified, W140s 
and these older Mercs are pretty famous for 
their good steering angles,

74
00:10:10,100 --> 00:10:16,200
Obviously not as good as a drift car's, but 
still respectable for a standard car!

75
00:10:16,400 --> 00:10:26,900
Another question was the electronics, it 
wasn't typical in Hungary to use VEMS, MaxxECU 
(it probably didn't even exist yet) at this 
level when we built the car,

76
00:10:27,100 --> 00:10:32,300
So we retained the factory ECU. The car now 
works thinking it is in neutral constantly,

77
00:10:32,400 --> 00:10:38,900
This only has one downside, in first gear 
when launching, it cuts out at around 4500RPM,

78
00:10:39,000 --> 00:10:51,000
Because the auto trans doesn't let you rev 
out the engine to 6000RPM when in park or 
neutral to save it from any damage.

79
00:10:51,700 --> 00:11:00,000
So every time I launch in first gear, it 
cuts out at 4500RPM for the first couple 
times and then it lets me rev up to 6000,

80
00:11:00,100 --> 00:11:03,100
The issue doesn't exist in second and and 
higher gears.

81
00:11:03,200 --> 00:11:06,700
The only modification done to the engine 
is that it gets a little bit more fuel.

82
00:11:06,900 --> 00:11:13,200
We achieved this while retaining the OEM 
ECU, someone tweaked it for us, we haven't 
done anything else to it.

83
00:11:13,400 --> 00:11:19,200
This is still a pre-facelift model, so it 
doesn't have coil on plug style ignition, 
but we don't even need it.

84
00:11:20,200 --> 00:11:26,200
It still has the same unopened engine that 
is was originally manufactured with,

85
00:11:26,300 --> 00:11:33,500
So this is an almost 30 years old V12, that 
I've been bashing the limiter in for over 
10 years,

86
00:11:33,600 --> 00:11:36,000
And it has no issues to this day, it never 
had any problems ever.

87
00:11:36,100 --> 00:11:44,600
These engines have a typical failure where 
the loom burns to a crisp and everything 
melts in the engine bay,

88
00:11:44,900 --> 00:11:54,100
However we never had any of these issues, 
even though we used it on airports in 40+C 
(105+F), and put it through its paces,

89
00:11:54,200 --> 00:12:04,800
It is incredible that it handles all of that. 
The whole engine is covered in oil sludge, 
you can barely see the engine block anymore.

90
00:12:04,900 --> 00:12:11,800
I am sure it has oil leaks everywhere, so 
in the near future we plan to take the engine 
out and go over it.

91
00:12:11,900 --> 00:12:16,900
It will be interesting to open it up and 
see how a 30 years old V12 looks on the inside.

92
00:12:17,200 --> 00:12:23,500
We recently revised the engine of the C600, 
we replaced the seals on it,

93
00:12:24,200 --> 00:12:29,700
We couldn't really see any wear on the inside 
of that one, I am excited to see how this 
one is going to look.

94
00:12:29,800 --> 00:12:36,100
When we get to doing this one, there is going 
to be a video about that for sure, so be 
sure to subscribe to not miss that one!

95
00:12:36,600 --> 00:12:47,400
So we started using this car in 2010-11, 
we mostly took it to gymkhana events, we 
then also entered the Professional Hungarian 
Drift Championship as well,

96
00:12:47,500 --> 00:12:59,600
We attended it for a few seasons, but it 
turned out very fast that the car is unusably 
heavy, around 1700kgs (3750lbs), which is 
brutal.

97
00:12:59,700 --> 00:13:06,500
We were able to achieve decent success in 
gymkhana races using Ferrari Challenge slick 
tires, I might have even won a championship 
with it.

98
00:13:06,600 --> 00:13:14,700
The car stood up to the task surprisingly 
well there, unlike in drifting, that's why 
we started the C600 project to replace this.

99
00:13:15,600 --> 00:13:21,000
After finishing the C600, this car was parked 
in the garage without much use.

100
00:13:21,100 --> 00:13:31,300
After a few years an idea came, since it's 
such a big car, why not replace the rear 
section of the roll cage with another 2 bucket 
seats,

101
00:13:31,400 --> 00:13:35,600
And make Hungary's or maybe even Europe's 
first drift taxi.

102
00:13:35,700 --> 00:13:48,500
So we just started doing it, we cut out sections 
of the cage, modified it so that two more 
race seats would fit and we ended up with 
a very comfortable drift taxi.

103
00:13:48,600 --> 00:14:01,400
We've been using it like this for 4 years, 
during an AMTS (international car and tuning 
show) I can take up to 100 passengers with 
it and it just does without skipping a beat.

104
00:14:01,700 --> 00:14:05,900
The only problem we have with it is that 
the accessory belt sometimes snaps.

105
00:14:06,000 --> 00:14:16,100
This is because of the missing AC compressor, 
we didn't need is so far, but now I would 
put it back to be honest, to not rot into 
our clothes while drifting.

106
00:14:16,200 --> 00:14:26,200
And by removing a pulley caused the belt 
to go on a different route, and sometimes 
a movement can form that ends with the belt 
snapping. That's all.

107
00:14:26,300 --> 00:14:33,600
We keep replacing it and the car is ready 
to use again, apart from that the car needs 
no service.

108
00:14:33,700 --> 00:14:39,500
We keep using it, occasionally replacing 
the oil when we don't forget to and we do 
nothing else to it.

109
00:14:39,600 --> 00:14:47,100
This ride is also far from being retired, 
I have plans for it, but at the moment we 
have so many ongoing projects that this car 
is down on the priority list.

110
00:14:47,200 --> 00:14:53,000
We just have use this one for now. And it 
is pretty rare when one can "only just use" 
a car like this.

111
00:14:54,800 --> 00:14:59,800
Thank you for watching, I'll see you next 
at latest and until then, bye!

