Bright White

31 Oct Bright White

Bright doesn’t even begin to explain the shade of white on this restored 1990 Mercedes-Benz 560 SEC.

Tom’s 560 SEC is fresh. Fresher than anything you’ll find in the produce aisle at Caputo’s or Whole Foods. Fresher than any mouth in any Orbit commercial. And the freshness (not that we haven’t used that word enough so far) doesn’t stop with the paint. This is not your ordinary exterior-only refresh; Tom’s car went under the knife, so to speak, receiving all sorts of updates. New badges were applied, the original wheels were restored, the motor underwent a replacing of all the gaskets and various bits that it needed, the original chrome was subject to some serious polishing, and a smattering of interior pieces were replaced as well. The end result is, well, what you see here. Not only is the white paint (the original color of the car) so bright that it manages to blowout the whites in every direct-sunlight photo (something your intrepid blogger-photog didn’t notice until today, despite these pictures being taken a couple weeks ago), but the chrome looks brand new, as do the wheels. Not everything on a 20-year old car needs to be replaced in order to look spectacular; sometimes, all it takes is a little elbow grease.

Affalterbach would be proud, we’re sure of it.

For being 20 years old, the interior’s leather didn’t require a whole ton of work to look spectacular.

Even though it’s at 172,000 miles, the refresh of the motor should have it running well past the 200,000 mark. As long as you stay on top of your maintenance, motors are capable of insane amounts of mileage. Take, for example, that Accord that just hit the million-mile mark. There are also plenty of old Volvos and Benzes that are north of 300,000 at this very minute.

Of course, not every restoration includes all-original parts. As many with older cars are wont to do, Tom’s 560 SEC received a new radio. While being stuck with just AM, FM and cassettes is better than nothing, it doesn’t account for the multitudes of technological advances since Bush #1 was in office.

SEMA begins tomorrow, so expect a few releases of content that we haven’t yet shown anybody! This is going to be one incredible week, that’s for sure. By the way, some of us will be in Vegas for the big event, so if you want to meet up with us, shoot an e-mail to mmarzano@fluidmotorunion.com and let’s try to get together! We love networking at every opportunity, so we’ll be excited to get some mail while we’re there!