BlueSilver500
New Member
Hello,
I'm new to this forum and close to purchasing an early R129 500SL, and wanted to ask people's opinions on restoring / improving / replacing the plastic (or vinyl?) door cards.
I've looked at a lot of early ('90 - '94) R129s and even the few that I've seen that have been really cherished and well cared for, properly serviced / maintained, everything works and it drives very nicely, sub 70k miles etc, in all of them the interior plastics, especially the door cards have gone quite shiny, dirty, possibly discoloured, even a bit warped etc - completely expected of a 30ish year old car interior, I know plastics degrade just being exposed to air or whatever, even in a lightly used and well maintained car.
The sorts of questions I have are...
- has anyone got any recommendations of cleaning / restoration products or techniques to make these aged plastics / vinyl look reasonably close to factory fresh again?
- has anyone gone to town and spent money on having the door cards upholstered in leather?
- are new replacements by any chance still available from MB themselves? (I know this one's unlikely).
I'm personally not obsessed with the idea of keeping total originality (with the interior anyway) and I wouldn't mind spending a bit of money on getting them reupholstered, as long as the results looked really good. But I can't find much pictorial evidence of this being a common approach anywhere online.
Any thoughts much appreciated, thanks in advance.
I'm new to this forum and close to purchasing an early R129 500SL, and wanted to ask people's opinions on restoring / improving / replacing the plastic (or vinyl?) door cards.
I've looked at a lot of early ('90 - '94) R129s and even the few that I've seen that have been really cherished and well cared for, properly serviced / maintained, everything works and it drives very nicely, sub 70k miles etc, in all of them the interior plastics, especially the door cards have gone quite shiny, dirty, possibly discoloured, even a bit warped etc - completely expected of a 30ish year old car interior, I know plastics degrade just being exposed to air or whatever, even in a lightly used and well maintained car.
The sorts of questions I have are...
- has anyone got any recommendations of cleaning / restoration products or techniques to make these aged plastics / vinyl look reasonably close to factory fresh again?
- has anyone gone to town and spent money on having the door cards upholstered in leather?
- are new replacements by any chance still available from MB themselves? (I know this one's unlikely).
I'm personally not obsessed with the idea of keeping total originality (with the interior anyway) and I wouldn't mind spending a bit of money on getting them reupholstered, as long as the results looked really good. But I can't find much pictorial evidence of this being a common approach anywhere online.
Any thoughts much appreciated, thanks in advance.
