Regarding European-market wagons, the Mercedes-Benz W123 is perhaps the best-recognized model line. There’s good reason for this, as their dependability is through the roof (for a European brand, at least), and it’s still a handsome design even today. That said, many of the versions you see for sale are equipped with long-lived but fairly pokey diesel engines, so finding one that is a European-spec model like this 1983 280TE with the more powerful gas engine, is the way to go, thanks to having a respectable boost in performance, not to mention the other benefits associated with gray market cars.

When you buy a European-market example, you get to enjoy the far prettier European-market bumpers, the glass H4 headlights, and other bonuses like a driver’s seat-mounted fire extinguisher. But in some cases, when a vehicle has never gone through the standard federalization process, there’s also the potential for weight savings as the safety reinforcement bars never get put inside the doors. All that aside, this W123 is a stunner simply for being in very nice condition, and the seller reports that it was previously a European delivery model that seemingly kept all of its desirable European-spec features when it was shipped stateside.

There’s likely an important distinction here: typically, a if a buyer chose the European delivery option, they would be buying a U.S. market ca that simply hadn’t been officially imported, allowing the owner to spend a few weeks touring Europe before heading home and waiting for their new purchase to arrive. This program was not intended to allow you to buy a car only intended for sale in Europe and ship it home like it was any other U.S. market model. It seems more likely to me that this car was owned by a service member or a diplomat and sent to the U.S. where it remained ever since. Who knows – the gray market industry was a bit of a wild west in the 1980s, so anything is possible. What matters most is how clean this W123 remains, and that its most desirable features have survived unscathed.

The seller notes that another key benefit to the European market origins of this wagon is that its familiar M110 engine makes a good deal more power than the U.S. version of the motor. In its current form, the engine makes a healthy 185 horsepower; when found in a standard U.S. model, you’re looking at 142 horsepower and even less if you reside in California (as this seller does). So, a healthy horsepower bump courtesy of a different camshaft and less restrictive emissions equipment. There’s a lot to like about this 280TE, so check out the full listing here on Craigslist.