Beautiful! I am not normally a fan of the aftermarket wheel arch chrome, but over silver it looks pretty sharp.
Brian
The arches were on the car for many years from the previous "lady owner" who received this car as a gift from her husband who had an office in Frankfort (car was purchased new in Germany from one of his clients). Being new to the Pagoda World, I did not realize that the arches were not original, or would have removed them when we painted the car. After the car was painted, but before it was detailed, I posted some "in process" pictures of the car. At that time was advised of the non-originality of the arches, but it was too late, as the area under the arches was not prepared. Rather than starting all over on what we felt was a perfect paint job, we had to stay with the arches. I have seen pictures of other Pagodas with and without arches and agree that on a silver car they add to the appearance, even though technically not original to the car at time of delivery.
When my wife bought this car, the older lady that owned it from the 1970s gave us a very large envelope containing every single receipt on the maintenance of the car during her almost 40 years of ownership, including a receipt for a major engine overhaul back about 5000 miles ago. She also gave me a small roll of seat material that she ordered from Mercedes to repair a small worn area in the driver's seat. I had both seats recovered while the car was being painted. We did this paint job in our shop at TP Tools in Canfield, Ohio in the original Mercedes color in a base coat/clear coat.
We had some minor issues that we took care of - tuneup, new coil, detailed the engine compartment, new rear springs and rubber block in center, repaired rear fender rust and added the two chrome strips on sides of rear fenders which were missing (luckily someone on this forum drew my attention to this), replaced the bottom of the metal on rear of car under the trunk opening (it had rusted out). No other rust or body work required, but we did a lot of block sanding even though the car looked real good at time of purchase as most of the rust was concealed under the arches. We also added a new set of Coker "Phoenix" tires and tightened up the carpet, which had been replaced, but was wrinkled and loose in some areas. The original radio worked, but we had to replace the electric antenna with an aftermarket one from Speedway Motors which works just fine. We also replaced the exhaust system with official MB parts.
The only thing to tend to now are the heater control knobs which have broken off and I heard they were not easy to replace. My wife drives this car on occasions to keep it loosened up. The convertible top (was replaced but never used) is intact, but my wife likes the hard top. It starts immediately, runs very well and is a fun car to drive.
Fritz
