My dad was an aero space engineer and was still sell helicopter components before he passed away in 1998.
He was a Marine, so it was his way or noway! When he went out on sales calls to talk to other engineers from Hughes, Waste-King, Boeing Aircraft and others (a long list of clients I must say), he talked to them with blue prints and numbers. I never could understand that foreign language.
He was one of the first, I mean first, with a mobile phone in his cars becaue of his position with these companies You know the ones that were as big as a toaster with a transmitter that was as large as a big suitcase with a whip antenna on the trunk.
Sometimes he drove with his legs and talked on the phone, scary!!!
Nothing I did was right. His famous word to me was "STUPID This" "Stupid that".
He had a staff of 12 people, 2 engineers, and a lady whom I still admire today and is 95 years young. She ran his businesss when he was out or in Europe and Germany.
You may be asking yourself why is this guy telling us about his father? Well, for certain reasons. He was a smart guy and developed
some very useful items for the companyies he dealt with.
He had the ability to see things in his mind, disassemble them and put them back together.
I learned how to drive on the old 280SL he purchased from a connection in Germany when it was new and brought back to the USA and used every day for the rest of his life.
Toward the end he separated from his family for another woman who promised him to make him rich, right!! We lost contact and that 280SL lost the only person who cared enough to keep her stock.
Years later, after he had passed away, I took another look at a sad looking, once proud Mercedes-Benz and knew if I purchased it from his second wife, (yes I said purchased it, not given it) I would have a long road to restore this car to its former self.
I will not go into details of his exploits other than to say he must of had a lot of free time on his hands and like a Doctor Jekyll instituted some very bizzare modifications that not even Q at 007s call would have done.
I read all your posts and ponder that if he had left things alone and did not get cheap with the labor cost, I might have had a decent car to restore.
Every day I look at this car there is something he did that I cannot figure out and want to undo. Call it sentemental or a crazy purchase on my part. A lot of OEM parts were discovered, so I think he was going to restore it someday, that is if his second wife did not hear about it and tell him where his money should be spent otherwise.
I do not care what other people think of me and my dad's car. One day, whenever I have a little money it will get better, I have seen worse.
Modifications can be a good thing. Instead of a 392 rearend how about a 327 with a freshly painted axle and new bushings?
Sometimes buying a car is all about making it yours. The smell of cherry pipe smoke still lingers as I open the doors a reminder of a simpler time. One day that smell will be replaced with new horse hair pads for the seats and correct new carpeting and an unmolestered air conditioner unit and a tangle of wires I have no clue what they did do or why they are there.
I respect modifications when they are done to improve the performance, handling and justify the means of making a 1960s classic a better running automobile. What I do not like is taking the heritage of a car and doing a Doctor Strangelove on it and destroying it.
Too few of these cars remain. Sadly, parts are getting scarce and disapearing before our eyes. The price keeps going up and a stripped car on Ebay will get you more money than an assembled one you own.
Think it over before you make unnessary modifications in the long run. Mercedes-Benz did its homework we all have to understand it was a different world then and the beauty of having a forty year old car is the reminder of a time long gone and that we shall not see again.
Robert Warren Geco
1968 280SL "Dad's car"
