Lucky Break #2: Karl Middelhauve. Like I said before, the gods were with me on this purchase.

I called Mr. Middelhauve, whose company, MB Grand 600 Restoration, is just 45 minutes from my house. A very formal, German voice greeted me on the telephone. "Yes, I can look at it right now - send it over." This is Tuesday, and I haven't seen this car, can't drive it, don't have a way to get it from point A to point B, and have no idea who Karl Middelhauve is. But, I'm getting deeper into this hole, so I forge ahead.

I contact my local car hauler and arrange for him to pick up the car and deliver it to Karl's shop. Great... another $475 into this car, I think (hah... as the Carpenters said, 'we've only just begun'...)

And so I wait for 48 hours, during which time I type "Karl Middelhauve" into my Internet search engine. Bang! His name comes up several times. If you don't know who Karl is (like I didn't), he is the guru of Mercedes 600 autos. He even owns six or seven (including the FF Coppola pullman). Basically, I have stumbled upon the Speilberg of 600s. And he is in my backyard!

Karl calls on Thursday afternoon, telling me that the car has been delivered and that it is in good shape. I confess that I didn't know who he was, and that I am most appreciative of his time to look at the car. We arrange to look at the car on Saturday - my first in-person look at the car. I'll spend another 48 hours anxiously awaiting this meeting.

Saturday comes, and I drive to his shop. He and his lovely wife are eating dinner (I feel terrible interrupting their meal), but he graciously seats me in his living room with numerous books and magazines on the 600, including two articles he wrote for the "Star" magazine.

And then the moment arrives... we walk a short distance to the cleanest, tidiest 'garage' I have ever seen. But I am more interested with a most imposing auto - long, tall, and lots of chrome. This is my first meeting with this beast, and I must say I was a bit intimidated. As John Olson states in his SL Market Letter, the 600 is NOT for the casual or inexperienced collector. As I was soon to learn, if you look up superlative in the dictionary, I'm sure a picture of a 600 will be beside the entry: long, heavy, complicated, expensive, rare, etc. It was the first post-war Mercedes to have a V-8; it had the largest tires ever fitted to a European passenger car; it had electronic air conditioning (in 1963!); it was faster than many sports cars of its era, too.

And I spent three hours talking with Karl about this car, his cars, his career as a consultant to the woodworking industry (including Steinway pianos), and the joys of restoring 600s.

Then a remarkable thing happened. He offered to buy the car. And I was tempted. Now I would get a chance to get out from under what surely would be an expensive and lengthy restoration, and make a decent profit. But of course, the story would end then and there. So I declined.

I left that evening exhilerated, confident I had made the right choices, and prepared for an exciting process of bringing a neglected car back to proper running order.

I had no idea of the complexity of the 600 until that Saturday. Most functions handled by electric motors today were handled by high-pressure hydraulics, including windows, seats and trunk and sunroof opening/closing. The suspension, the bane of these cars, was pneumatic (the airbags!)... Even the brakes were over the top, disks all around, with dual calipers up front.

On Monday, Karl called me to return to see the car. Things were a bit worse than expected. The suspension would be difficult to restore, due to the salt and neglect from the previous two years

Over the coming six weeks, I made several trips to Karl's shop to see the progress. Many nights he would work 'til midnight, and I felt somewhat guilty that I was not assisting in the process. But this was his passion, and he would not dissappoint.

A little bit of history... This car had been reposessed by GE Capital. The owner, a Middle-Eastern businessman with a company in Boston, had purchased the car from Hatch and Sons, for the tidy sum of $85,000, in 1997 for use as a corporate car. But the business went bad, and he literally abandonded the car in August, 1999. GE auctioned it to the dealer from whom I purchased it on eBay. Previously, it had been owned by Tom Kreid, a relatively well-known Mercedes collector from San Diego, CA. It began its life in Jacksonville, FL, but at this point I don't know much more about its history. It only had 90,300 miles on the odometer (original), but the two years in Boston's salt and sand, and the nine months in the impound lot had taken their toll on the car.

In the end, Karl replaced the entire front axle including the dual caliper brakes, all of the airbags, the rear brakes, the ignition system (from mechanical to electronic), the hydraulic accumulator, both alternators, the water pump, the starter, the horns (hard to miss all three of them!); in general, he got the car back into running shape. In fact, all of the rebuilt parts were cadmium plated, even the bolts!

The interior, thank goodness, was fairly flawless. The original buyer had the option of several types of wood and leather interior combinations, and mine had chosen tan leather and rosewood. I have seen several 600s whose interiors are wrecks, and as they say, the devil is in the details. Again, I lucked out and I don't have those problems.

One night, about four weeks into the work, I visited Karl for an inaugural drive. Karl fits perfectly behind the wheel, and he is not intimidated at all by this car. Sunset has come and the back country roads are dark, and somewhat wet. That does not preclude Karl from driving this car. I was, I admit, a bit scared. This car, with both of us in it, weighed nearly three tons. It was old. Outside, there was water on the pavement. What is this man doing to my car? But, of course, he knew exactly what he was doing. If he were driving a Porsche, he could not have driven it more perfectly.

I am convinced... Karl is a genius (or crazy). We arrive back at his shop, having just taken one of the world's best sedans for a drive that no sane man should have attempted. And the car never lost its composure under tight corners or hard braking. I wouldn't have driven my Z3 that hard.

Finally, on Saturday, April 15, 2000, almost seven weeks after Karl received the car, he handed the key over to me. The basic nasty, complicated work to restore the drivetrain was done. The hydraulic and air systems were functional and the car was very roadworthy. Now, if only I had a license plate and title...