Dashboard Restorer – Mercedes Pullman Woodwork – W100 – 6 door Limousine

A special re-veneering project for a very special car – 60 pieces for a stretched limousine.

This project is the largest I’ve had so far. I’m often asked to restore sets of woodwork for Bentleys Jaguars, Rolls Royces and Mercedes but this Mercedes was something special. It was a six door limousine with around sixty pieces, sometimes nearly identical. It even had a woodwork surround to the sliding glass privacy divider between the driver and passenger areas.

// Lire cet article sur la Mercedes Pullman W100 en français //

There was a second reason this project was so special and that’s because the project was for Rebellion Motors in Switzerland. They were restoring the limousine to be used as the vehicle for the Rebellion Racing Team drivers in the Driver’s Parade before the Le Mans 24 Hour Race.

It was a challenging project not only to keep track of all the items and where they belonged in the car but also as it was a re-veneering project I had to work out the best use of the veneers to ensure that the grain matched, that nice mirror effects were created by inverting matching veneer both left and right, but also for vertical and horizontal window surround pieces.

See below about tricky pieces of woodwork that had ridges, dips and curves that needed to be successfully re-veneered.

Rebellion Motors requested a high shine to the water based lacquer finish that I use. It creates a lovely sheen without being thick and ‘plasticky’ (like modern PU lacquers).

First here are a few photos to show you state of the Mercedes Pullman W100 Woodwork when it arrived at the workshop.

Successfully veneering woodwork with curves and dips in the wood

Replacement Speaker Grill

And here, just for fun are a few images of the drivers parade at Le Mans, with the Rebellion Racing team drivers sitting in and on the Mercedes Pullman W100 Limousine that I helped to restore. Unfortunately you can’t see any clear pictures of the woodwork, I’m hoping to receive some from the team, when they can.

I had no idea beforehand that they were designing such a vibrant look and style for the car. You can’t miss it, it really stands out!