1967 Mercedes 250S

[customtronic]

Next I modified the dash with grill inserts.

[customtronic]

I made another grill in the center of the dash, replacing the oem speaker grill with one that matched the mids. There's no center channel in this car. I also reinforced this piece with fiberglass and then did a little body filler work to smooth out the top.

[customtronic]

I pressed out grills using perforated hex pattern to match the tweeter grills. I then wrapped the dash pad in 1/4" open cell foam and some black microsuede.

[customtronic]

I also did a mild restoration on the oem wood panels. I wanted them to look better but not look new. I did some light sanding, then stain, and a single coat of gloss clear.

[BigAl205]

[customtronic]

Next thing I did was to get rid of the ugly blue interior. I watched several videos on using SEM Marine Vinyl Coat. This stuff works great if all of the steps are followed. I first cleaned the interior with a water/bleach solution. Next step was SEM Soap vinyl conditioner, then SEM Vinyl Prep. I did this on everything blue or white....seats, door panels, headliner, and sun visors. I also needed to get rid of the matching ugly blue carpet. Everything I found online was the same loop pile. I wanted something better looking so I bought a few yards of nice plush carpet from my supplier called The Bentley Collection. Nice looking carpet. I used the old oem pieces as templates and just cut a new carpet kit. Here are the end results with before and after pics.

[customtronic]

[customtronic]

Here are the "after" pics.

[customtronic]

This can originally came with a single DIN HU in the dash. This left a hole there once I decided to build the center console and install the 2-DIN Panny. Here's a couple of pics of the radio delete plate I made. Just some white oak, stain, light coat of clear and an oem 250S emblem. I also did a light resto on the remaining wood trim that consisted of a very light sanding, stain, and light coat of clear.

[customtronic]

So, that pretty much covers the headunit, front stage, and the interior color swap to black. The last thing that was done to the interior was the rear deck. The rear deck now houses the Helix DSP, power distribution block and a small tool kit. I tried to keep this old school by using a NOS Street Wires power and ground distro block. This old distro block was available in a couple of different configurations...AGU, Mini ANL, etc. While it was being built I was using an AGU model but a good buddy gave me a mini-ANL model so that's what was eventually installed. You may see both in the build pics. As far as the tool kit, it seemed like most builds in the 90's incorporated one but I don't see it done much anymore so I decided to bring it back in this build.

First thing I did was to build the base using mdf and a crap-ton of popsicle sticks. A little time consuming but it worked out perfectly.