2012

In February 2012 the car was sent to get a roll cage made. A 1:18 scale model of the 300SEL 6.8 was bought and used as a reference to build the roll cage. The brief was that the cage had to look original through the windows, but to be up-to-date and functional to modern racing standards. The finished cage was impressive with side impact bars and criss-cross bracing in the roof. The exhaust system was built at the same time with custom manifolds. On the one side, the pipes from cylinders 3 and 4 were combined into a single pipe while the pipes for cylinders 1 and 2 went forward into a single pipe - these two pipes were then joined into a single pipe. A four into two into one arrangement. The same arrangement was made for the other side manifold, resulting in two pipes running the length of the car into a rear silencer.

Referring to photos found on the internet, the ride height was adjusted to lower the car so that the wheel arch modifications could be tackled.

In July 2012 the car was sent off to the panel beaters for the fender modifications. The idea was to cut the fenders to make room for the wheels and then to extend the wheel arches around the wheels. Several detailed photos were also used as a reference. During the process some modifications and tweaks were made and the overall result was very good.

The manual gearbox conversion took the most time and was going on in the background while the body work was being modified. The gearbox being used was a five speed Getrag box from a 190E 2.3-16 with the dogleg first gear. A new flywheel was required as well as an adapter plate. The engineer who did the job recommended that a common ring gear and starter motor be used - the starter on the M100 is unique and no doubt expensive if anything were to go wrong. A starter from a W126 500SE was used instead and the ring gear was from a Ford. The clutch kit was for a Mercedes Sprinter van.

The original gearbox mounting plate was used, but the hole for the starter was modified to take the W126 starter.

The adapter plate was milled from a piece of aluminium and then fitted over the flywheel which bolted onto the original gearbox mounting plate. The gearbox would then bolt onto the adapter plate.