‘Maxine’ spent the first two decades of her life in the windy city. During this time she was consistently dealer serviced, garaged, and altogether lovingly cared for by her namesake and original owner. She then made her way to Michigan where the recession, neglect and an unfortunate run in with a deer nearly saw this once lovely vehicle in the junk yard. As she sat in our lot, waiting to be parted out and scrapped, an enthusiast from Chicago decided to give her a new lease on life. We approached her restoration in two phases. The first phase addressed obvious issues of drivability and collision damage to the driver’s side, including a new fender, front door, head light bezel, molding, and repairing a dent in the hood. The new parts were stripped, sandblasted, primed and color matched to the existing paint. The grill was carefully re-built using new stainless steel vertical & horizontal trim and retainers from Mercedes. We replaced the exhaust, the oil pan gasket and the transmission mount, rebuilt the front suspension, replaced brake lines, rear brakes, and changed fluids. The wheels were sandblasted, refinished and fitted with Bridgestone tires. The interior was deep cleaned, the engine bay de-greased and fitted with a new hood insulation pad. We repaired the radio antenna and windshield wipers, polished the entire exterior and oiled the rubber trim.
The second phase began, a year later, with repairs to the passenger side and a much needed interior restoration. When the original carpet was removed we discovered structural damage to the floorboards, seat and seatbelt mounting points. The damaged metal was removed and replaced with 20 gauge galvanized steel. The underside was epoxy primed, the weld joints sealed, and rubberized undercoating was applied. Dyno-mat insulation was installed underneath a beautiful new carpet kit from GAHH. We then applied new zebrano veneer to all of the trim pieces, which were cracked and showing their age, and custom fabricated a center console cup holder in matching zebrano veneer.
A striking specimen once again, Maxine has found herself back in her hometown enchanting a new tribe of drivers.
