What happens in Vegas should have stayed in Vegas

[MarrsCars]

I've had my coupe for a year and a half now and really enjoy it, enough so that I was planning to buy a cabriolet version from my uncle who has a beautiful silver 220se. Long story short, he loaned the car to his son, my idiot cousin, who ended up taking the car to Vegas for his bachelor party with some buddies and, well, just have a look at what was sitting in the garage when I came to collect it this weekend. Needless to say it made for an awkward Easter dinner. Now what?

[trimacar]

You should walk away from it, even if he gives it to you the car's always going to be "off". What a shame, I'm in the process of putting a top on an identical car and what a nice car they are.

Hopefully he had good insurance, to me that's totaled, although anything can be brought back with enough time and money......

[Steve_Mack_CT]

Marrs. you got to David before he had his coffee, because I know, like me, he is no April Fool!!

Have a great day.

[The Continental]

Did they meet Mike Tyson? Did they find Stu?

[MarrsCars]

I've been busted! Detective Steve, you've earned the Golden Pickle Award, which is really just a pickle that I left on the window sill for too long, but it's all yours.

If nobody figured it out by mid-day, I was going to post these images I "found" on my cousin's Facebook Page.

[MarrsCars]

Did they meet Mike Tyson? Did they find Stu?

You don't even want to know what (who) they found in the trunk!!!

[Steve_Mack_CT]

"The Hangover" - Saw this a while ago despite being told not to bother. It was a classic example of underpromised and overdelivered, I thought it was pretty funny actually...

David your son is getting to that age where you need some bonding movies...

[CarFreak]

You don't even want to know what (who) they found in the trunk!!!

Jimmy Hoffa?

[jeff_a]

David,

I've been told you get a pass on April Fool's Day for thread highjacking. What's the scam on that sinkhole business at your hacienda? If you're a new "DF-er".....David Coco had an enormous sinkhole appear on his land this same date two years ago.....Dave was OK, but of course many old cars vanished.

I really did find a used car lot at work that had a Pinto, Vega, and Dodge Omni for sale. You could have replaced your whole collection with what will probably be The Classics of 1970s American Motordom in a hundred years or so. The Vega was one of only 424 million GMs sold after WWII! The Pinto was one of the Ersatz Estate Wagons(woody-ish). Thought the Dodge was one of those "024" Hi-Performance versions -- but it ain't.

Marr'sCars no doubt was unaware of the tragedy, what with his own Mercedes repair issues! No one's ever told me that a '62 Mercedes is particularly expensive to repair...so it must not be.

----Jeff

Edited April 2, 2013 by jeff_a (see edit history)

[MarrsCars]

Marr'sCars no doubt was unaware of the tragedy, what with his own Mercedes repair issues! No one's ever told me that a '62 Mercedes is particularly expensive to repair...so it must not be.

----Jeff

Hi, forgive me if I'm the one missing the joke now but if you were serious then yes, they can be quite difficult to get right after major damage. These were among the very last cars built at Karosserie Sindelfingen, the in-house coachbuilding division at Mercedes-Benz. The cars used off the shelf engines but the interiors and sheet metal work are far removed from the assembly line cars. Many parts look similar to sedans but are completely different, the hood has a more fluid shape, the grille is canted back ever so slightly for a more rakish appearance, and so on. All of the trim bits were fit by hand and shaped, shaved and filed until they were just right, and only then sent out to be chromed and refitted to that specific automobile. When I replaced my headlight bezels this summer I noticed they do not fit at all like the originals and it took a good amount of work to make them correct. Each side is different, just like many of your coachbuilt cars I'm sure. IN many ways repairing one of these is no different than any other car, but panel gaps were extraordinarily tight for the era, leading for seams, and so on, so it really takes a tremendous amount of hours (= $$$) to correct a damaged car, if you want it to be of the same standard as it was originally anyway. If you were kidding, ignore all that.

[jeff_a]

No, I didn't really know anything about post-war Mercedes-Benz. Though my Dad's friend Charlie Bevan owned a M-B dealership in Kansas in the 70's, I only went over to visit once. I never read of the distinction between the Karosserie Sindelfingen and non-K. Sindelfingen autos, which sounds about like the difference between a '36 Ford and a '36 Brewster Ford.

I fell for your April 1 Joke, too when I first read it, and was like everyone else thinking what a dopey cousin you must have (in your account) to turn a car worth maybe 5 figures into a parts car.