Does my car have a genuine W126 AMG body kit?

[C124MoneyPit]

Hi everyone,

I bought a W126 300SE (on a 1992 plate) that supposedly has a genuine factory-fitted AMG bodykit. I bought it on a whim because it was very cheap, and also, quite frankly, I think it looks cool.

I'm wondering if anyone has any information regarding these bodykits? How would I identify this one as being genuine? Were they indeed fitted from factory? Any interesting facts you might be able to provide?

I'm struggling to find any information about these at all and your help would be highly appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[MeQ]

I remember seeing this on eBay, was very cheap. Did you sort the engine issues out easily?

 

[C124MoneyPit]

I haven't done so much as sit in it yet! I'll get on to it soon...hopefully nothing major.

 

[SmartAmg]

Like it! Certainly looks the part.

 

[C124MoneyPit]

Like it! Certainly looks the part.

It certainly looks good from a distance haha. Needs a full respray and a good amount of rust repair.

 

[KillerHERTZ]

Please can you post your threads in the correct sections, not everything in the General.

Moving

 

[SmartAmg]

It certainly looks good from a distance haha. Needs a full respray and a good amount of rust repair.

Good from far, but far from good.

 

[BTB 500]

Were they indeed fitted from factory?

If you mean the Mercedes factory then I don't think so. Until some time in 1993 there was no contract between MB and AMG, so AFAIK any work was done either by AMG in Germany or by their national agents e.g. Stratton in the UK.

 

[tonysmb]

It's difficult, if not impossible, to tell from a photo. Back then AMG were a separate tuning co. and, in the UK, parts were only available from Stratton's, the sole concessionaire. There were certainly parts available for the SECs and there were a few 500 and 560s with AMG bodykits, steering wheels, wheels etc. and they were (relatively) very expensive, though whether any saloon kits were available I don't know. I very much doubt that a 300 would have been fitted with genuine AMG fittings when it was new, simply due to the price.
AMG kits should have a part number stamped in them.
They were not factory-fit.

Eta; I thought I'd posted this but hadn't, hence some duplication of BTB's

A genuine SEC AMG kit looked like this at the front:

 

[C124MoneyPit]

Appreciate the info @tonysmb and @BTB 500

It's not great quality, but I managed to get a photo of one of the stampings in the passenger side skirt. Hopefully it's useful.

 

[BTB 500]

I wouldn't claim to be an expert but that looks pretty genuine to me.

 

[ray_hennig]

but that looks pretty genuine to me.

That's what I thought.

R

 

[neilrr]

Old pre-merger AMG part #s begin with 'HWA' I think. Dunno about the newer stuff.

 

[alabbasi]

AMG kits will have AMG stamped on the parts so it would be easy to tell. AMG was not part of Mercedes Benz at the time and you could buy whatever you wanted from them. There were lots of cars back in the day, particularly in the UK that had AMG styling parts installed but were left stock mechanically.

What's going on with those jack point covers?

 

[E55BOF]

I'd bet AMG Tl Nr is short for AMG Teile Nummer (AMG Part Number), and AMG part numbers did indeed begin with HWA way back then (well, genuine AMG jacking point numbers for my '94 SL did), so if the unreadable bit before the actual digits is HWA, it's genuine.