Sometimes the villains in James Bond movies drove them; they've always been classy. And thanks to two Utah car builders, they're looking better than ever, and getting faster than ever.
But are they hot enough to start a trend?
We'll start with the tame one, which was still a lot of work. Alex Hixson, of Holladay, liked the stacked-headlight Mercedes-Benz cars from 1961-1973, inspired by cars he'd seen the "bad guys" drive in early James Bond films. He bought a 1973 Mercedes SE from a North Salt Lake wrecking yard, but progress restoring it was slow, as it had a lot of rust.
While shopping for parts in the same wrecking yard, he saw a 1971 Mercedes 280 SE for sale for $300.
The engine was seized, the interior gone, but the body was good. Hixson came back with his fiancée, son and brother to help push it onto a rented trailer.
It sat for a year in the tight garage before Hixson got to work. Paint was first, and Hixson used his detailing experience to buff out the original paint. The 1973 SE donated its headlights and bumpers, which was lucky — Hixson says the stacked headlights are pricey, if you can find them at all.
Next up was the interior. Turning to KSL Classifieds, eBay and the old '73, he rebuilt and recovered the seats on the 280 and restored the padded steering wheel. His father, Ryan Hixson, restored the wooden dash. The headliner was restored by Wasatch Upholstery in Ogden. Kangol, the hatmaker to WWII British general Bernard Montgomery and U.S. rapper L.L. Cool J, made the seat belts.
He and his fiancée removed the engine from a third car, tore it down, sent it to a machine shop and put it in the '71 when it returned, connecting it to the original transmission, which had a good going-through itself. Many YouTube videos were watched and online forums were visited for direction.
Hixson put it on air suspension: sometimes it can sit low and show some attitude, and other times it can ride at stock height, so it's ready for any video shoots or movie work, if you know anyone looking for a ride for some baddies.
Judson Eades took a different tack with his old Mercedes sedans — one that had him swapping bodies and multiplying power, and cutting their zero-to-60 times by more than 10 seconds.
During a mission to England, Eades came to love Mercedes' Unimog vehicles. When he came back to Utah, he used the Mercedes trucks for a disaster cleanup business he owned. He said he likes the performance of Mercedes sports cars more than the looks. That was the thought train that led to his first old/new mash-up: a 1965 Mercedes-Benz 230 S project.
The basic idea was to take the body of an older Benz with classic lines and put it on a modern Benz platform.
He and his buddy, Casey Hibbard, found a 2005 Mercedes CLK 500. The body match was close, but it still needed lots of work to get the CLK under the 230 S. They blacked out everything on the exterior, including headlights, bumpers and badges. They also lowered the stance. He showed and cruised it at the 2024 Cache Valley Cruise-In, then sold it in early summer 2025 to a guy from Georgia.
Then, he went to the next level.
For build two, Eades and Hibbard went with an older body and a faster donor. He reached out to S-Klub in Los Angeles, a custom car builder specializing in Mercedes, and found a 2012 C63 AMG. Car and Driver rated these at 481 horsepower, and tested one zero to 60 mph in 3.7 seconds (a Corvette of the same year did it in 3.63 seconds).
Eades says he wanted a naturally-aspirated engine because turbos act like mufflers, and this engine crackles every time you let off the gas. And all those angry horses got saddled with … a 1959 Mercedes 220 S, called a "Ponton" for its style. "Ponton" is the French and German word for "pontoon," which denotes the styling of smoother post-WWII cars. The two cars were found within two hours of each other in California, but they weren't an exact match, though they were closer than Eades' first choice, a V-12 S-Class.
Matching the two up was a year's worth of work. Eades said the wheel well distance was pretty close, but the 2012s are wider than the 1959s, so he used carbon fiber flares to make up the distance. There are tweaks throughout to get the two enmeshed.
When you sit inside, it's all modern. He put black plaid on the door panels and ceiling. He said he'll probably replace the seats next month since they did not have three-point seat belts in the 1950s, and the b-pillar is in the wrong place to mount one. They went through the motor, and gave it coil-over suspension.
For looks, it gets a matte black finish with stripes and AMG markings that announce its capabilities.
Watching it drive past at the 2025 Cache Cruise-In parade, its 1959 face seemed to say "Whoa, Nelly!" as it went past. The original Ponton made 74 horsepower, good for 0-60 in 16.6 seconds. We're guessing the new time is 13.3 seconds faster than the original because the '59 weighed 1,000 pounds lighter than the '12. Figure several hundred pounds of the weight difference can be explained in the drivetrain, but older cars weigh less than modern ones, so the 650% power increase is probably scaring the original grill right off the car. The original headlights were already scared off.
Eades said the car gets plenty of love and admiration. He turned down an offer of $400,000 for it. So are older Benzes ready for their moment in the cool spotlight with the popular kids?
Hixson and Eades both say no. They chose their rides to be unique, not fit in with the rest of the customs.
Hixson, whose daily driver is a 2006 Mercedes E55 AMG, hasn't seen another elder MB on the road, stock or otherwise. At Cars and Coffee events, he sees more Lamborghinis and McLarens than Benzes, and if he weren't there, there wouldn't be any.
Eades said that S-Klub is doing crazy Benz builds that sell in Dubai for millions, often giving MB Gullwings the modern treatment. He sees a little bit of a fad, but said prices have softened since COVID. He thinks restomod money is better spent on more distinctive vehicles than muscle cars or the 1940s Cadillac he had originally considered for his build, adding that Benzes give a better return on investment, though the cost of the builds is the same.
But it's not a trend in Utah — yet.
