RunInColorado

For those of you who are interested in doing the European Delivery I thought I would suggest also visiting the Classic Center. The classic center is where older cars are brought to be restored back to their original condition. Many cars seemed to be owned by collectors with deep pockets from the Middle East (4 out of the 8 cars being currently worked on were from the ME). The Classic Center only offers tours once a week on Monday at 2pm. It takes about an hour or so to go from the factory to the center assuming you do not get lost (which happened to everyone we talked to). My tour was only given in German which made me really use the high school and pimsleur German to understand things. If only Pimsleur had a course on automotive German. As we stood next to many rare and expensive cars, the tour guide (who also worked on the cars) gave a history of the model, unique features, famous owners, and the story behind the actual car sitting in the shop. Rarely have I seen someone so passionate about working on the older cars. The show room I believe is open daily, but with the a tour guide, visitors have access to the workshop where you can see the cars undergoing restoration. Back behind the big garage doors is an expansive workshop where at my visit 8 cars were in various stages of restoration. Several Gullwings, a 1930s era racer, Hitlers convertible recently found in a bunker having a complete restoration, a fully restored car belonging to Mussolini, a 60s S600 Pullman limo, and a 80s SL Rally car were on site.

Below are some pictures from the Classic Center:







Here are some from the new Museum:






And from the Factory:

JDM

Very cool! Any photo's of hitlers convertable? I had'nt heard about that..what's the story?

ClayJ

Very Nice - thanks.

RunInColorado

As I stated above, my German was pretty lacking in some places so I will try to just give the info which I am sure about. The car was used extensively by Hitler. According to the guide, it was seen in many films of Hitlers speeches and other publicity events as it was one of his favorites. It was armoured including the glass (panzerglass he called it) but as you can see it was a soft top car. It was found in horrible shape in a bunker used by Hitler, I do not remember the location. The car was there and was being restored from the frame up and was actually rather complete. Apparently the allies never found it or did not know what it was. The Classic Center was given the project by the management of Mercedes and once the restoration is complete in a year or so it will be given back to management. Perhaps for the Museum?? Truely a priceless piece of history. Stories like this with all the cars made history come alive and made the classic center more interesting than the whole museum. A side note, they do sell some of the cars on display. A MB convertible from the 50s was being sold by the owner for only 70k. The Mussolini car above was not for sale, although the guide said it would go for over 5 million at an auction.

Below are pics of the Fuhrer Auto. Sorry for the poor quality of the armour on the door. The panzerglass was suspose to be similar to the Mussolini one above

prsmith777

Awesome!
Im picking my SL next Monday. I have a scheduled tour at AMG that day at 3pm, though, so I cant make it there. Plus I dont speak any German at all.

egxpimp

WOW !! Amazing, thanks for sharing ! as always !

adv074

I would love to visit the Classic Center in Germany. If anything I should go to the one that is located in Southern California. Hopefully they provide tours there. Great pictures.

JDM

cool, thanks.