aowhaus

Been pondering for a new style grille for a while now as there is nothing I really like that looks good on a silver car.
I went with an aftermarket SL-style grille and custom painted it myself to look like the OEM SL grille. The aftermarket SL-style grille only comes in all- glossy black, all-silver or all-white which I didn't like, so I took the all silver grille and painted the mesh parts in matte black, leaving the center fin and badge surround in silver. The middle fin looks more centered and balanced compared to the all-black grille with the chrome fin which IMO sits too low on the grille and doesn't quite follow the lines of the headlight and hood.

6-speed

Lookin good. Hope to see you on the T dot O dot streets. Is that laminex on your headlights??

vic viper

Not feeling it, it seems out of place.

EuroJDMBenzo

its probably one of those things that looks better in person

MDMercedesGuy

Absolutely love it! I've been wanting to go 1 fin for a while - this may have just sealed the deal for me.

Doa

i like it very much but at some level i find it much more suited for a coupe version so i stick to the normal one on mine

caligreenzzz

I would have to agree....

MDMercedesGuy

What about it seems out of place?

vic viper

Its an SL style grill, the actual SL usually have a longer and less wide gap grill, I really dislike when trying to make the car look like something its not.

RS grill on a regular Audi, fine, but a grill style from a different model or model year entirely, no thanks.

MDMercedesGuy

With all due respect, didn't you just put a coupe grille on your wagon?

The average person is going to see that and think C63, not SL. I doubt the OP was trying to fool people into thinking a C is an SL...

vic viper

So?, the C-Coupe is pretty much the same car, I was talking about completely different models here.

I don't think he is trying to fool people, I just gave my own opinion on the grille, If you like it, go for it, I wouldn't touch it with gloves.

OCDBenz

I like it. Better than modding out a station wagon. Doh!

caligreenzzz

Uhhhh no.........

OCDBenz

Just kidding, of course.

Haus - Where did you find the grille?

aowhaus

6-speed: yes, I used Lamin-X for my headlights and fog lights.
OCDBenz: I bought my grille from Jakuo/55tech on eBay, I bought from him a few times and I have been very satisfied.

I'm not trying to make my car into a SL, as they are two completely different cars, that would just be silly. I just like the clean simple look of the grille and in fact the single fin grille is also used on other MB models as well. Some put an AMG grille on their non-C63 cars which is the same principle.

Finding an aftermarket grille for a silver W204 is especially difficult as the grille opening is rather big and tall and many of the popular aftermarket black grilles make the grille look like a huge black hole on a light coloured car. The stock OEM grille looks just right as the silver tri-fins blends in nicely with the rest of the car, but I just wanted something different and a change after owning my car for 6 years.

If it looks tasteful, well executed, and happy with the results, I don't see what the real issue is.

If I were to put a chrome Bentley-style grille on my car, now that would be another story...

ricardo.careaga

looks really nice

ManuelCarrillo3

I'll be writing this up for photo of the week on MBWorld.org.

MishaDesigns

Looks clean! Was it a simple "plug n play" install?

aowhaus

Thanks everyone!
After watching a couple YouTube videos and read a few DIY posts here, I managed to change the grille in less than 10 minutes. Very easy and straight forward.