black engine compartment?

[Benz Dr.]

It is generally agreed that engine bay is the same colour as the body. There may be exceptions but I know of none nor have I seen any. I've seen lots of black engine bays but none of them were original.
I doubt that any sound deadening material was applied to the bottom of the hood on factory production cars. It's more than possible that a deralership could have done that by request of the owner. These are 40 year old cars and lots of things could have been done to them.

 I am however, completely sure that not all cars had the blacked out areas behind the grill. I had an early ' 64 at my place last year and it had no such treatment. This is  a car that is totally original. Singnal red with black interior and 4 speed trans. It was delivered new to El Salvador and has always been in the same family. It has about 35,000 miles on it.
The trim and every item on the car has never been off or touched.
 The next time it's back in I'm going to do a total photo documentaion on the car. There are details on this car that I've never seen because original cars are very rare - it's the first and possibly only one I'll ever see.
Engine compart ment was red like the rest of the car but there was no blacked out areas in the engine bay. What I did find interesting was the area around the fire wall insulation where the heater core pipe and grommet sits was blacked out. This was the only area in the engine back that had this treatment. It was also blacked out around the defrost ducts at the base of the wind shield which is correct.

[114015]

Dan,

Would love to see these pictures!

Always highly interested in totally untouched early SLs

Thaks a lot in advance.

Achim

[VincentR]

Hi Guys,

I finally got the answer from the person I know in MB Germany.
It seems that the internal part of the bonnet has never been painted in black (dark grey) on the 280 SL.
So that is meaning that my bonnet is one aftersale bonnet which was originally fitted with soundpads and primered in black. When it was changed on my car, they took the decision to only paint it externally and not in the internal side.
As it was black when I bought that car, I decided during my restoration to paint it black (i did not know the SL113 site at that time). So I suppose I'm the only one to have one internal black bonnet in the world....
Hope this will help for fuure restorers.
BVest regards.
Vincent R (France).