A cool car with a touching story.
We've all heard stories of cars wasting away in barns, garages or driveways for years, but fortunately that is no longer the case with this 1969 Mercedes-Benz 280SL. After sitting neglected in a garage for 37 years, the Ammo NYC detail crew was tasked with cleaning the car in preparation for a restoration.
The cool part of this story is that it wasn't the owner of the car who commissioned the detail crew with rescuing the car; it was the owner's son. He did it as a surprise to his father who was the car's second owner after purchasing it in 1972. The Mercedes was used as a daily driver until 1982 when it was unceremoniously parked in the garage with more than 100,000 miles on the odometer.
Just getting the Mercedes out of the garage was a task in itself that required trimming back overgrown plants, moving clutter out of the way and using dollies – the dry-rotted tires were completely flat – to push the car back. The car was covered in dust in mouse droppings and the interior was moldy and smelled of decaying animals.
Even though the Mercedes was to be restored, the detail crew did an amazingly thorough job breathing some life back into the car's aesthetics. It was nice to watch the dusty paint revived back to its bright red hue and the dull chrome given a new shine, and the moldy interior looks impressive as well considering the condition of the surfaces at the beginning of the video. Of course, the best part is watching the man's father see the car out of the garage and cleaned off for the first time in 37 years.
We were first introduced to Ammo NYC when they uncovered a massive 300-car collection found collecting dust in a warehouse where they eventually cleaned up a Bizzarini P538 as well as a 1967 Chevrolet Corvette.
