According to its original build sheet, a copy of which is included within the file, Mercedes-Benz 230 chassis number 406732 was originally mounted with a sedan body and delivered in late 1938 via the Mercedes-Benz dealer in Zürich, Switzerland to a buyer in Dortmund, Germany.

In the early post-war era, likely between 1949 and 1951, the car was rebodied by Baur, the Stuttgart coachbuilders. One of Germany’s best-known body-makers, Baur would go on to considerable fame constructing BMW’s convertible models, as a prototyping firm for various automakers, and as an occasional “skunkworks” for manufacturers, which famously handled the construction of the 959 for Porsche.

In the rough early post-war years, when new chassis were scarce and hard for coachbuilders to acquire, Baur appears to have made something of a specialty of building similar exotic, streamlined modern bodies on used “junior” Mercedes chassis; photographs survive of similar coachwork in a variety of guises on other cars. The strong influence of other European coachbuilders, most prominently the French firms of Saoutchik and Antem, can be seen in the full-figured lines of the 230.

At some point, the Baur 230 was brought into the United States, and in March 1968 was purchased by Kurt Singleton of Chino, California. While Mr. Singleton had intended to restore the 230, it instead remained unchanged in his ownership until its sale to Rudi Klein in 1983. A historic photograph included in the file indicates that the 230 was acquired by Rudi in more or less the same condition as present, and it has thus now awaited restoration in the Klein sheds for over four decades. Ideal as the basis for an ambitious restoration project, the car appears to have been repowered at some point with a 1954 Mercedes 220 engine and bears a German serial number registration plate from the same era, but retains much of the interior, and its sheet metal and trim are both in large part intact.

A coachbuilt Mercedes-Benz of quite unusual character, this car ably broaches the pre-war and post-war eras, and is a wonderful memento of German craftsmanship from both.