In the early 80s, a friend restored a 1936 Mercedes-Benz 170V Saloon that he found in pieces in the attic of an old downtown Seattle body shop. It took five pickup truck loads to get the entire car to his shop and about three years to completely restore it to original condition. He had almost every part except for the steel wheel that was for the spare tire, the instrument dial backgrounds, and the rubber window surround moldings.

Despite combing the Earth for that fifth wheel for the spare, he was never able to find one but, since the spare tire was kept underneath a trimmed cover on the back of the car, it wasn't missed. The instrument dials he faked by carefully photographing, and printing on photographic paper, a set of dial faces.

Those rubber window moldings?

He was able to have a well-connected German friend contact Mercedes in Germany where they responded by breaking out the original molds and producing two complete sets for the car.

The year after the car was complete, it won a local Mercedes-Benz of America concours show by 4/100ths of one point over a Gullwing that had just gone through a $200,000 restoration.