My 280SL has been depressing me lately, as some may remember, it was hit i the front before I bought it. The damage was above the bumper and pushed the grill, core support and fenders back about 3 inches. The hood was also crushed.
It did not seem like a lot of work, but pricing the parts all together was going to cost 5 figures if I was to buy the parts separately.
I've been looking for a parts car but I wasn't holding my breath given how much even parts cars cost.
Last week, I put an out for some Jaguar parts in the local CL as I needed some fuel injection bits and bobs for my XJ12C. A fellow Emailed me and asked me to call him. We got to talking Jags and I came to find out that he ran a successful body shop for 30 years in Dallas and did a lot of work for the local Porsche and Ferrari dealers. Amongst his cars was an XKE so I mentioned that I had the MB competitor, a W113 280SL but it needed a front clip or at the very least a hood.
Just like that, he said that he said that he has one sitting in his attic and that he may know of abandoned project locally that has been sitting at one of his friends body shops for more then 20 years. He said that the last time he saw it, it was sand blasted to bare metal which is when the owner gave up.
We agreed that he should see if he could broker a deal and we struck one very quickly so yesterday, he dropped off a second shell to my body guy.
Sand blasting reveals a lot about a car and it's usual to send a what may be considered a fairly solid car to a blaster and come back with something that looks like a tea bag. This happened to my car and gave me depression. On the parts car, it was much worse, but the damage was limited to the frame and floor. The quarter panels, fenders, core support and rear panels were all in good shape and it would make an excellent donor for my car.
I'd like to sell the rear half of the car once the front clip is removed. If anyone knows of anyone who needs a rear 1/2 of the shell please let me know.
