I wasn't a fan of the grey leather interior and being a tribute needed to go black. Originally I was going to do an interior swap from a facelift W124 but then decided I would stick with the pre 1989 look. I obtained a donor 1988 300E with black interior from auction for cheap and gutted it, at the same time ordering a set of Recaro's for the front and a new set of veneers which I decided to do in Birdeye maple after seeing how good it looked in the E500. After gutting I sent the headliner, pillar covers, parcel shelf and door cards to be finished in black macro suede (very similar to Alcantara), and ordered a new black leather rear seat cover. I built up a Moman instrument cluster and fitted a new pioneer stereo with 5.25" speakers front and rear in the OEM housings and a self powered amplifier under each seat. To fit the speakers the rear required cutting of the metal parcel shelf, also required at the front and trimming of the speaker grille. The self powered amps are a tight fit and the seat has to be positioned in the lowest height position where the base is slid all the way back, this wasn't an issue as the recaros seemed a little higher.
It all went back together pretty smoothly, the most time consuming part probably being fitting the stretch suede headliner and repairing a few items like the door cards. Apologies for the quality of the photos and I also need to give it a proper detail. I'm still planning on building a set of covers for the recaro seat adapter on the outside trimmed in leather.
Looking forward the rest of the car is going to be built as a modern Hammer tribute with M156 power that I hope to enter into a few motorsport events, this work won't commence until I finish my M113K powered 560SEC. I've already begun gathering parts for this though and have a big brake kit and set of coil overs ready to go, I also have a 6 speed Nissan CD00A manual transmission waiting but have been trying to source a damaged S63 or ML63 for the engine swap. Also need to find a 210mm differential if anyone has some contacts.
