Dark heart rising: Mercedes Bent
It might look like a gently updated classic, but the 'Mercedes Bent' has a dark secret underneath its gleaming body...
California might be the home of human cosmetic surgery, but it's also worth reminding yourself that it's also the world epicentre of automotive plastic and metal surgery.
The story you are about to read simply couldn't, wouldn't have come about in any other country than the USA, nor any state not called California. The mix of available cash, open-minded thinking, custom-car lust and concentration of high-precision, custom-car builders here just doesn't exist anywhere else on the planet on this scale. In the SoCal automotive space, there's no such thing as impossible, just improbable.
Words: Pat Devereux
Photography: FlyThis article was originally published in the October issue of Top Gear magazine
Advertisement - Page continues belowFor that reason, it's always worth giving an apparently ordinary car a second look, because chances are it's hiding a couple of interesting automotive secrets. Or, in the case of this familiar-looking but strangely extraordinary 1961 Mercedes 190SL, a whole walk-in bank vault full. Seeing it sitting on the show floor at last year's SEMA tuning-car fest, there was something about it that didn't quite add up. Several things were just gently... amiss.
That one-piece billet aluminium grille with the oversized three-pointed star was the first oddity. The wide, body-coloured wheels tucked tightly into the squared-off arches the second. The third, and final, clue before realising that a full exploration was required was the badge on the bonnet. It looks like a proper Mercedes part until you get up close. And when you do, the builder of the car, Randy Clark, knows his exquisite four-wheeled practical joke has worked. The apparently authentic roundel reads ‘Mercedes Bent'.
Advertisement - Page continues belowAs the owner of the casually named Hot Rods and Custom Stuff tuning shop in Escondido, CA, Randy has a thriving business building the fantasy muscle cars and '32 Ford hot rods most punters have been dreaming about all their lives and have had to save for decades to buy. And we're not talking about old cars with just a new paintjob and a set of aftermarket wheels. With the passing years, the expectations rise to a point at which the gleaming Camaros, Chevelles and Mustangs that stream out of his huge but humble facility are usually wearing nothing more than the original badge when they leave. One-hundred-grand drivetrains are commonplace; £100k+ body and air-suspended chassis, the norm. So it's a high-end operation.
But the Mercedes Bent takes it to an altogether higher level. As gorgeous as the slick-sided, tightly panelled muscle cars look and sound when they are finished, the Bent's extraordinary fit and detailing makes them look like kid's toys. Imagine a blacksmith designing and creating a delicately woven diamond-encrusted platinum ring, and you'll get some sense of how unlikely it is seeing the Bent parked in the workshops among all the American brutes. It looks like Princess Grace just got lost and stopped by to ask directions.
The dream car of Richard Mott, the Bent started life 18 months ago not as one car, but two: a 1961 190SL found unloved in a garage in Arizona; and a 2004 SL600 which had just 10,000 miles on the clock and a single scratch on its bodywork. If you're squeamish, take a deep breath now, as what happens next is the automotive equivalent of a full body transplant. Having disassembled the 600 and 190, the tape measure showed the 190's bodyshell was way too small to fit over the 600's chassis in every direction. To sort this normally project-ending problem, the shop calmly sliced the 190's bodyshell into a gazillion pieces.
First they cut it down the middle - adding six inches to the width. Then they sliced it five times across the body - putting another nine inches on the length. And then they cleaved it horizontally to add an inch and quarter to the height. As complicated as all that sounds, that was the relatively easy bit. Next, they had to stick it all back together and keep the overall proportions. To do this meant creating from scratch completely new doors, bonnet, windscreen, bumpers, lights... everything really. The shop was helped by the local presence of some of the best concept-car builders in the world, but it still wasn't what you'd call easy.
Advertisement - Page continues belowThe 20-inch steel wheels, which are perhaps the only detail that instantly look a little out of place, had to be that size to clear the 600's huge brake discs. And the outsize grille is a piece of pure showmanship. It started life as a 281kg block of solid billet aluminium and emerged from the sweating CNC milling machine days later as the 9kg sculpture you see here. Everything else, from the doorhandles to the windscreen struts and the his-and-hers fitted leather luggage in the boot, is perfect. Likewise the red leather interior. Despite carrying over the 600's seats and seatbelts (and pretty much everything else - 60 per cent of the finished car is 600SL), there's still a fantastically classic feel to the interior, particularly through the biro-thin steering wheel.
But not to the Bent's performance. Being a tuning shop, HR&CS didn't just shovel in the standard SL600's V12, they added as many RENNtech upgrades as they could lay their hands on, too. The result being a 190SL that has 650bhp - more than six times the standard 1961 190SL's output - and 750lb ft to play with. A fact which provides one of the most bizarre - and fun - driving experiences. One minute, you can be wafting down the road limply holding the skinny wheel with your fingertips. The next, with very little provocation, you can have this £500k artwork in a full-blooded drift. It's fantastic: the coolest classic car in the world, with the performance of a Porsche Turbo.
Advertisement - Page continues belowCurrently, this is the only Bent in existence, but there are plans afoot to build up to four more. Even with that sky-high pricetag, I'm sure there are four more people out there whose dream car is ready to become a reality. Particularly here in California.
Trending this week
- Car Review
- Electric