Freedom be damned, what we need in 2012 is a president with the guts to assemble a team of inspectors to check out every garage, barn, outbuilding and shed in the United States and put an end to this barn find thing once and for all.
This one, a one-of-29 300SL alloy bodies, has been missing for decades. Mercedes 300SL restorer and historian Rudi Koniczek, of Rudi & Company, had 28 of the vehicles tracked down and had previously restored numbers 1 and 6, it was pesky number 21 that nobody could find. A rumor started 20 years ago that #21 was in a garage in Santa Monica. In late September, that rumor was proved true.
The owner, Tom Wellmer, got the car in 1955 as a graduation present from his parents in New York. It drove it to Cali and then continued driving it until the 70 when the transmission died and he lost the will for the project.
"This is the ultimate garage find and may be one of the greatest finds ever in the collector car world,. It's amazing to know that the car had been there all those years without anyone knowing about it." said Koniczek.
That this was mere blocks from our office is driving me mad. Not quite mad enough to become a picker, but enough that I'm probably going to get pulled over for driving very slowly through residential neighborhoods this weekend peeping in garage windows.
*Edit: Looks like Hemmings has a story on this from earlier in Sept. Cool stuff.
desmolicious says:
01:04 PM, 10/ 7/11
Were the two photos above taken a long time apart? The junk in the garage around the Benz is very different.
subytrojan says:
01:11 PM, 10/ 7/11
Sell the NSX and every other purchased vehicle in the LT fleet to get this! Now!!!
throwback says:
01:45 PM, 10/ 7/11
"The owner, Tom Wellmer, got the car in 1955 as a graduation present from his parents in New York."
Damn! I'm going to have a talk with my mom, the watch was nice and all but...
bankerdanny says:
02:57 PM, 10/ 7/11
That is some cool old mini-computer stuff in the background. Looks like old DEC equipment.
bankerdanny says:
03:09 PM, 10/ 7/11
@desmolicious: if you read the Hemmings piece the broker who 'found' the car brought guys in to move stuff around to get a better look at the car. I think the bottom pic is from when he first got to see the car and the 2nd when they were getting ready to move it from the garage.
ralphhightower says:
05:01 PM, 10/ 7/11
+100 subytrojan
firstwagon says:
05:15 PM, 10/ 7/11
Why is everything else clean but the car so dirty?
agnh says:
06:00 AM, 10/ 8/11
Somebody needs to open a museum and have displays recreating actual barn find situations like this. Maybe a section of the Peterson.
firstwagon says:
05:18 PM, 10/ 8/11
agnh
Are you sure that's not what we are looking at? Maybe I'm just not that trusting in my old(ish) age but something about this just suggests staged to raise the value.