Factory original canvas top.
Due to their nature of being a "soft replaceable"
these are rarely seen today... |
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The pictures shown below are
of our master upholstery technician installing a new
German
canvas top onto the folding frame. |
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The new top canvas fits to the frame like a glove. |
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Seats - As an extreme
originality purist I do not take lightly the renewing original items.
These seat covers exhibit wear consistent with low original miles,
storage indoors and
careful use. However with a heavy patina and one cut the decision was
made to renew
them so that the car can be consistent with world-class standards. |
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As we carefully removed the
original covers we noticed
that the production number (# 595)
was
written in grease pencil on the inside bolsters. This number can be seen
in many
places including the body plate affixed to the top of the left front
wheelhouse in the
engine bay (see below) |
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The production number is
also written on the seat frames. |
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The seats were carefully
rebuilt maintaining as much originally a possible. |
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Carpet - While there was
virtually no wear damage our Southern California sun did
have a go at it. Since the color red has the most pigment it is the most
vulnerable. |
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In keeping with quality of
the rest of the car the carpeting was renewed as well. |
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Above are close up images of
the original trunk weather seal. We can
look very closely and see 11-May-1968. |
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This very original pagoda came in with her original bumpers but as was
the practice at some U.S. Mercedes dealers, the buyer was sold an
"upgrade" in the form of bumper guards. These were practical in an era
of sharing the road with American behemoths with gigantic chrome
battering rams. Today they look very out of place and seem to be made to
a scale more appropriate to a large sedan. In '68 U.S. 280SLs came with
clean bumpers just like their European home market contemporaries. In
the model years '69 through '71 the U.S. cars mostly all came over with
an optional model specific bumper guard (much smaller than those
pictured here). While an option in Europe, most buyers opted to leave
their cars with clean bumpers (no guards). |
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Original
bumpers, both front and rear. |
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We took this car back to its
original specification maintaining its original factory bumpers. The
guards were removed, the attachment holes welded up, the bumpers
completely re-chromed to factory standards and finally the back sides
painted as was the factory practice in off-white. |
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Of course these cosmetic
improvements are just the "tip of the iceberg" as altogether we've spent
over 400 shop hours
bringing this car to the level you see in the photos. This includes
mechanical maintenance and functionally items
not limited to seals, gaskets, mounts, levers, lights, tuning, hoses,
belts and adjustments. This motorcar now
functions absolutely the way Daimler-Benz intended. |
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