A Tyred Dads Racing Club Blog

The one car I should’ve never sold!

I don’t know about you, but I have always hated having to drive a run of the mill car. Even if that car is only to get me to and from the day job or to run parts for the more interesting metal in my life, it’s always been a requirement that I have something half interesting. I am a top tier advocate for interesting daily drivers!

If I look back through my car history there has only been 3 times that I have had to suffer driving utterly boring vehicles. Once when I crashed my twin turbo Toyota Soarer, yes I am a BMW fanboy but JDM cars are where my heart lies. Anyway soarer + ditch = a burgundy 6n VW Polo that I was given by my Aunt. I couldn’t be annoyed at what I had to drive because of the generosity but I definitely hated almost every second of driving it. This was followed by a mk4 Golf GTI, not the half decent 1.8 turbo version but the early 2.0 NA slowboi version which was again given to me when someone else had finished with it. I also hated every minute of driving the Golf, in fact I hate every minute of driving any Golf. I don’t know why but every VW Golf I have ever driven has given me chronic lower back pain! I have no idea why but I can guarantee if I drive a golf, within 30 minutes I will end up walking like a 90 year old ground worker.

Anyway enough about the boring every day cars, we’re here to talk about interesting daily drivers and, more importantly, the car that in my opinion was the absolute perfect daily driver.

Comfortable and roomy enough for 4 of your closest, 6 foot tall adults and their suitcases. Fast enough to be interesting, full of early 2000s tech that is overcomplicated and will probably break and just interesting enough to make it all worth it.

I present to you, my perfect daily the W220 S55 AMG.

If you have never experienced a W220 S class you are missing out. I paid £3000 for this particular S55. With 180 thousand miles, a sprinkling of the brown magic around the lower corners of the doors and a slightly dodgy headlight it wasn’t the finest example. It was however a 360 BHP, 5.5 meter long land yacht with fully electric heated and cooled massaging front seats, electric reclining rear seats and genuinely enough space that me as a 6 foot 2 man could sit comfortable behind another 6 foot man driving it with his legs at a reasonably comfortable angle to drive.

I actually recorded the random photoshoot I did of it which populates the image space in this post. So click this link to have a proper look around my favourite daily driver. https://youtu.be/V96Mez3keX8

Now you may be thinking, a 5.5 litre V8 is probably not the wisest choice for a daily driver… and you would be correct! At the time I owned it I was doing around 120 miles a day commuting between Bromley and my day job at Heathrow, however it did only use as much fuel as the ep3 civic type r it replaced. Both averaged around 30mpg on the long motorway commute but nothing I have ever been in was as comfortable as the Mercedes.

I used to leave my house at 3:30 am to head to work and short of annoying the neighbours with its backbox delete it honestly was the perfect companion for those early morning drives. I’d roll out of my front door weary eyed and trying to mentally prepare for a shift at Heathrow, ice cold mid winter fog hitting my lungs and a mug of coffee keeping my hands somewhat warm until I pressed the button on the fob to unlock the car and heard the familiar clunk of the locks on the Merc. I flop into the black leather seat and get the car started, instantly engaging both the heated element and the massage function as the chair and steering wheel automatically move together into my slightly too relaxed driving position. Foot on brake pedal and pull the gear stick into D, the old 2000s slushy automatic box plonks itself into drive and off we go into the night.

For a 2001 car it honestly had everything I could ask for! The previous owner had bootlegged a bluetooth setup into the standard head unit which worked surprisingly well, the hydraulic suspension worked faultlessly and soaked up every bump thrown at it. The rear exhuast boxes being removed created a wonderful noise that wasn’t too over powering as it still had another 900 silencers along the rest of the pipe and it would happily boogie right the way up to 155 mph all while letting the passengers hold a normal conversation due to its double glazed windows.

Yes it had its quirks, the headlight repeatedly blew bulbs and I could not work out why, the rear blind never worked, the drivers seat height adjustment switch was slightly broken meaning it was stuck at its lowest setting…no problem for someone taller like me. But non of these things could’ve ever ruined what was a near perfect driving experience. Okay my M3 is fairly sensible and can go much faster around a track but it doesn’t give the feeling of sitting in the arm chair you’ve owned for the last 20 years which has slowly moulded the cushions to the shape of your arse. My Toyota Chaser was a JDM super saloon with the perfect 1JZ powering it, but realistically that drank fuel like it was going out of fashion and was worth too much so parking it in a Tesco on the way home from work was a painful experience and in the event someone did hit it getting parts was a nightmare. Getting parts for these old German tanks is still relatively easy and the used market is somewhat sensible in its pricing. Okay they aren’t the easiest to work on yourself unless you’re fairly competent with which end of the spanner to hold but it is all doable and they have an almost cult following so the information on how to do things yourself is widely available in the most part.

If you haven’t ever experienced one of the late 90s early 00s luxury super saloons I really urge you to try one the w220 s55’s can be had for between 3-5000 for a pre facelift like mine, they aren’t supercharged rocketships like the later ones but that isn’t what you buy this car for, other options lie in the e38 or e65 7 series BMW and the Audi a8, non of which will dissapoint if you get the high spec limo variants with the larger v8/v10/v12 engines. They are so cheap now, but do keep in mind you are buying what was once a 100k car. The repair bills can bill excruciating if you aren’t careful and handy with the spanners. Make sure to do your research and know the common faults and areas to look for when thinking about buying cars like this. Don’t be super scared of higher mileage cars as most of these have been posh businessman or chauffeur cars that have been cared for well for most of their lives.

I urge you all to make the hard choice and drive interesting cars. It will 100% guarantee a possible improvement in your life and even if it ruins your life, you’ll have a smile on your face every time a boyracer in his fiesta st tries to overtake you and you glide past with the massage seat giving you an interesting take on what a massage should feel like.

Drive.Interesting.Daily.Drivers.

Until next time.