Great Barn Find

The Barn Find of a Lifetime

There is just something about a weathered, unrestored original car that is intriguing. When presented a at car show, the beat-up original car (much to the chagrin of the guy parked next to it with the $30,000 paint job) will always have a crowd around it. It provokes the imagination and raises questions. Where was it found? Why was it stored for so long? Who owned it? What's the story of this car? The story can be as or more interesting than the car itself sometimes. In the case of this barn find Mercedes, both the car and the story are very interesting indeed.

My friend Randy Carlson had been pulling old cars out of barns, side yards, back lots, old shops and garages for the better part of forty years. His website Carchaeology.com is well known and some of his amazing finds are featured on it. I first found out about this Mercedes find on his social media and was instantly drawn to it. I was finally able to see the car in person at the 2023 The Quail, Motorsports Gathering in Carmel, where Randy filled me in on this remarkable car.

Growing up in the 1970s in Southern California with a father who collected cars prepared Randy for a lifetime of following in his footsteps. Being the youngest sibling by a decade meant that his driving years were still to come, but the images are still vivid in his mind fifty years later.

"I can still remember when I was about 10 years old," he recalls, "riding shotgun in my dad's 300SL Gullwing and using every bit of restraint within me to not push the little passenger side horn button as it would annoy him so. For a while, my mother drove a 190SL and both my brothers had their time behind the wheel as they got their driver's licenses and such."

Randy was just 18 years old when his father passed away, and the cars in the collection slowly drifted off to new owners. His eldest brother got the 190SL, Randy kept his dad's 356 Porsche and a 1930s Packard remained in the family garage while everyone moved on with their lives. Randy's passion for old cars resulted in a lifetime of chasing old cars and restoring them.

Reflecting on his life with cars, Randy says "The process has always kept me close to my father in my mind. I'm sure he would have greatly enjoyed my automotive adventures in my adult years, and while I have never achieved the level of collecting that he had in his prime, I have had some really fun machines passed through my hands and have fully immersed myself in the automotive hobby and scene, perhaps even deeper than he ever did. The 300SL had sold long before his passing and long before I could ever drive it myself, but I've been a fan of Mercedes and other German marques since those days."

August 2021 found Randy busy prepping for Monterey Car Week. His trip was planned to the hour, and one of his cars was registered for multiple events. After a year of forced hiatus thanks to Covid restrictions the previous year, he was excited on a whole new level. That excitement was crushed to the ground just a week before the event when COVID-19 again stepped in to ruin the fun. This time it wasn't the cancellation of all the events, it was much closer to home…in fact, it was his home."My son got it first and then it spread to all of us, and while the symptoms were thankfully mild for us all, it did mean that going to play cars with my friends in Monterey was off the table."

Instead of attending the events, Randy watched all the fun at Monterey Car Week on social media and received texts from friends of all the great cars at the events. Randy remembers it well, "I grumbled and moped around the house like a broody ogre. I spent hours on the internet staring at cars and videos and watched all the auctions online from start to finish. It helped pass the time perhaps, but it didn't make me feel much better teasing myself with visions of where I wanted to be rather than just doing something constructive with my time. However, in this dark and broody mood, I stumbled on to what turned out to be one of the most incredible car discoveries I have ever found."

While cruising around Facebook in one of the barn-find groups, Randy saw a photo of a recently discovered Packard much like his father's that someone had pulled out of a shed. The person posting was excited about his find but didn't know much about it, so Randy commented on the post. He decided to help him out with his knowledge of Packards and started a conversation with him. The chat started first in the comments, and then though private messaging that eventually led to a long and enjoyable phone call."We chatted about his car and the find, and at one point I asked the habitual question of 'what else was in the barn?' The Packard had some stable mates for sure, a 1930s Rolls Royce seemed the most exciting of the array and after the call he texted me some photos. The Rolls was cool, but a glimpse of a red convertible next to it caught my eye. I asked what it was and he replied Mercedes, and I just knew with every fiber of my being, whatever it was, I wanted it. I asked him if he would be willing to help me get that car, and he agreed. He planned his next trip to the barn the following week and I sat and stared at the couple of photos he had texted me, struggling to figure out what it was."

A week later Randy's new friend was able to visit the barn again and he sent him a poor-quality cell phone video of a walk around the car. The room was dark and the car was pinned tight in the corner behind some other cars. Randy was like a dog with a bone – he didn't want to let this one go. "It was hardly the sort of thing you could make a wise buying decision from, but I made it clear that I wanted it badly and would make it well worth his time if he could swing a deal with the owners for me. They wouldn't give him a price at the time, but my internet friend promised to follow up with them and let me know. I spent a sleepless night pouring over the video and dark photos trying to assess the car and its condition. They knew nothing more about it that was helpful, other than them telling me it was a 1940 or 1941 car." The next day the phone rang and Randy was finally given a price to which he quickly agreed and asked how best to get them the money. They wanted cash as many people do, and with Randy being quarantined 2000 miles away from the car, this presented a bit of a problem. Randy explains, "My helper offered to handle the cash part if I wired him the money, so he sent over his bank info and I arranged for the wire. The moment I got confirmation that the wire was sent, the gravity of the situation hit me like a ton of bricks. I had just sent a sizable amount of money to a man I don't know, for a car that is not his, that is 2000 miles away and I have no clue exactly what the car is or how horrible its condition might be. Have I gone completely insane?"

Randy continues his saga. "More sleepless nights passed while the funds crossed the country and my internet friend makes arrangements to return to the barn to do the deal three days later. He was great with communications thankfully, so I knew when he was heading to meet them and that he was about an hour and a half away from the location. I watched the hands on the clock move for what seemed like an eternity and finally a text came through 'Houston we have a problem'. My heart sank, my stomach churned, this is where it all falls apart. I gathered my emotions and gave him a call. The problem it turns out, was that they couldn't find the key for the car! I breathed a sigh of relief and laughed, I told him to forge ahead and a short time later he texted me a copy of the bill of sale and I knew the car was mine. But what did I just buy?"

As the seller began to move the cars surrounding the Mercedes, the first clear images of the car came through via text. Randy was flabbergasted by what he saw. This car was not some tired 170 or standard model at all, this car was truly spectacular. The flowing lines of the body and the unique rear fender shape were like nothing had ever seen. As video and photos came through of its extraction, he was literally screaming and running through the house like a maniac. "He sent a photo of the body tag on the driver's side and again I screamed like a school girl… Rometsch? Are you kidding me?" Randy was intimately familiar with the coach builder Rometsch through their VW-based creations, having had two of them pass through his hands in the past. He had even visited the little Rometsch museum in Germany just a few years ago, but had never heard of a Rometsch Mercedes before."

As the car was being loaded on his trailer to get it off the property, Randy again started to freak out a bit. The plan was for him to park it under his equipment shed until arrangements could be made for a transporter to pick it up. With the realization of the rarity of the car now clear in his mind, Randy made some frantic phone calls and miraculously found a transporter that could pick it up the very same evening."A few more sleepless nights and the transporter pulled up in front of the house. He opened the door of the truck and I put my hand on the fender…it's real, this really happened, and this incredible coach-built Mercedes was mine!"

The Research Begins

The history of the car is not yet complete, but many of the puzzle pieces have been put in place. The car left the Mercedes-Benz Mannheim plant for Berlin on March 15th 1940, but not in the form of the fabulous red cabriolet it is today. It was originally built as a Pullman Limousine, a long wheelbase W142 320 model equipped with the larger 3.4-liter engine. The factory records indicate that it still has the original engine that the car was fitted with new.

The factory records can only tell how us how a car was originally made, and in this case, it was a limousine. How and when did it transform into a flashy Sport Cabriolet? The answer to this question came from an automotive historian in Brazil that sent Randy a photo of the car taken in Berlin in 1948. The photo showed it parked in front of the distinctive windows of the Rometsch building, the very same building Randy had visited just two years previously.

The Rometsch archives show after an initial search, only small jobs done to the car, not the full coachwork. The discovery of a thesis on coach building in the Berlin Technical Institute revealed personal notes from Rometsch designer Johannes Beeskow that mention the car and a Maybach coupe completed in 1948 as "the last". The "last" reference may refer to Beeskow'stime pre-war with coach builder Erdmann & Rossi where he designed and built many amazing custom bodies. Many of these designs have an uncanny resemblance to the body on the cabriolet. The Erdmann archives agree that it looks to be an Erdmann-style design, but they have no records of it in their ledgers. Notes found in an interview with Beeskow recall Rometsch receiving the Mercedes and Maybach to work on, but no mention of the condition in which they were received. There are many mysteries yet to be solved.

What remains to be found most importantly about the car is whom it was built for. While it was delivered as the limousine, most likely to a dignitary or wealthy industrialist in 1940, was it the same owner that contracted with Beeskow to convert it to the Cabriolet? Did the car acquire a new owner or sustain damage during the war that brought it to the coachbuilder for a new body? And how and when did it find its way to the United States? The family Randy purchased it from recalled that their recently departed family patriarch bought it in Albuquerque New Mexico, possibly in the late 1950's or early 1960's. The car was flat towed with a home-built tow bar to rural Michigan in the late 1960s where it was parked in the barn where it sat until 2021. Evidence of the tow bar is still visible in the form of two crudely cut openings at the front lower fenders.

After taking delivery of the car, Randy spent months researching its history as well as working on preserving and reviving the car to the best of his ability. He managed to get it running and driving with all the loose parts assembled and put back on the car, chronicling its progress on his social media outlets. A few missing parts had to be located and some needed to be fabricated and installed.

The debut of the car was at the grand opening of the new California-based Mercedes-Benz Classic center where it attracted quite the crowd. Its second event was the San Marino Motor Classic, where just as it did at The Quail event, consistently drew more eyes and compliments than the sea of perfectly restored classics displayed all around it. Randy says "The goal is further technical fettling to make it reliable and safe to drive and to continue to show it in its as-found state. While a full restoration is a tempting challenge, preserving the beauty and intrigue of the car as it was found is much to fun not to share."

Randy has discovered many rare and interesting cars over the last several decades, but he says this car is by far his most spectacular find to date.