READER RESTO
KEEPING IT IN THE FAMILY
Dad got this car back in 2000 from Doncaster Mercedes in Melbourne. He was looking for a 420 and they said they had something coming in that might be an alternative. Dad saw the 560 and said he’d never afford that, but the dealer promised it for trade-in cost, which turned out to be $15,000, which was pretty good for one of these back then. It had 160,000km on it, and so was a lot of car for the money, even a couple of decades ago. Back then it was still a quick car.
Mum drove it a lot and it was used as a work car, often carrying paint tins and stepladders. By 2009 it had 520,000km and Dad was talking about retiring it. He was disappointed when he was only offered $2000 for a trade-in and offered it to me for the same money as a project car.
I started with the interior. There was a company in America that could supply the whole pre-made kit in leather, with all the extra foam required.
Overall the interior involved a lot of work, cleaning it up,
“YOU GET TO MEET A LOT OF PEOPLE AROUND THE WORLD”
installing the new leather and a host of smaller jobs. For example, we got the timber panels redone.
With 550,000km it was getting very tired mechanically. The timing chain went, which necessitated a top-end rebuild. Mechanical parts for these cars are easy to obtain, with several suppliers around the world who can usually get you what you want very quickly.
About this time the gearbox gave up, too. I thought was a pretty fair effort when you looked at the mileage! That got treated to a complete rebuild as well. By now we had it at a point where it was okay – running right and you knew you could rely on it.
At first we left the exterior mostly alone. This was going to be expensive to fix and we needed to get a few more years out of it. We did however track down an original set of wheels and refurbished them.
One of the great aspects of a job like this is you get to meet a lot of people around the world as you’re chasing various parts. It got to the point where people were offering me stuff. I met a guy in Germany who had an incredible supply – lots of rare components and accessories that had come out of Dubai.
He was a great source. We got all sorts of rare stuff from him, such as trip computer, picnic table, window blinds, heated seats front and rear, an auxiliary heater system to pre-warm the car before you got in. No-one has that stuff here and it just got to the point where I said I want it all.
At some point we were going to Europe and I had toyed with the idea of sending the car overseas to get the body done, if it made financial sense. I met a guy in Holland. He owned a workshop called Autorestauratie Aalte – you’ll find it on Facebook. He did pagoda-roof Benzes, Porsche, Ferraris, that sort of thing. He wasn’t at first all that interested when I mentioned the 560. But he suddenly took notice when I said it was from Australia.
The body was pretty good, but it needed a complete respray. It cost me $24,000 all up, including shipping it there and back. Given a similar job here would have been 30-35, I think it was good value.
In the end the body was straight and there wasn’t much rust, except for a little in the rear window.
My mate calls it a boat and it doesn’t like tight twisty roads. However it’s very smooth
“I TOYED WITH THE IDEA OF SENDING THE CAR OVERSEAS, TO GET THE BODY DONE”