Dream Car Garage begins its new season in Europe, with a road test of the Mercedes AMG SL 55 in and around the spectacular setting of the Principality of Monaco.

Throughout the 2008 season Dream Car Garage will be airing segments from our two week trek across the continent that took Tom, Peter and the rest of the DCG crew from the southern most tip of the Mediterranean to the icy roads of the Nburgring.

In the first episode of the new season we also introduce our feature restoration and modern project car. The Pro Shop feature restoration is a 1957 Mercedes 300 SL “gullwing” that belongs to BASF. The Gullwing will restored from the ground up and of course finished in BASF’s Glasurit 90 Line of waterborne paints.

The Modern Project Car is somewhat of a misnomer, a Model A Ford built in the tradition of a sixties show car by famed ol’school hot rodders Oddball Kustoms.

The first episode like the rest of the season is crammed full of cool car guy stuff, Optima contest winners at the ZO6 driving school in the south of France, Lincoln Electric work bench project, Richard Petty Experience and the wildest test of a vintage dream car yet, beware the Striped Tomato! Come in Zebra 3!

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Episode 2 – Viper Track Day

Tom and Peter journey to Mosport to try out the new Viper against a Corvette ZO6, both cars return unscathed unfortunately we cannot say the same for the tires.

After disassembling the Gullwing in episode one the Legendary Motorcar team begins the careful process of stripping off all the old paint from the body and spaceframe chassis. It turns out there is a lot more to sandblasting than meets the eye.

The Mercedes had gone through a number of color changes since it was sold new in Texas more than fifty years ago. Painted a BASF custom color shifting silver in its prior incarnation, the Gullwing will be refinished in an original 1957 Mercedes color, using modern BASF paint of course.

Step 2 of our Lincoln Electric work bench project, hope you are following along at home. Oddball Kustoms starts at the bottom with the frame for their blown Hemi powered show rod.

The Modern Dream Car and Vintage Dream Car both come to you from sunny Florida but they couldn’t be more different, a Bugatti Veyron and Wild Bill” Flynn’s “Yankee Peddler” altered wheelbase. ’65 Dodge AF/Xer.

Episode 3 – Maranello

The drive to Maranello was another 300 km and there was much confusion over the correct route to take as we could not get OEM and aftermarket GPS devices to agree.

Peter and Stewart Kahan of Satisfied Brake (who had flown in the day before) took the Mercedes and Chrysler 300 the scenic route along the coast before heading north to Maranello at high speed.

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Episode 4 – Dream Cruise, Nburgring and Winter Driving

Dream Car Garage and Legendary Motorcar joined BASF in Detroit for the 2007 Dream Cruise, bringing a selection of rare muscle cars to show off. Talk about bringing coals to Newcastle. The Dream Cruise is a definite car guy must do once in a lifetime event. You will see every kind of car imaginable in Motown, not just muscle cars, but everything from an Edwardian Rolls Royce to an orange 58 Fleetwood. Best of all the cars are being driven, cruising a 16 mile stretch of Woodward Avenue from Ferndale to Pontiac.

The Dream Cruise started back in 1994 as a one day fundraiser and has taken off, evolving into a week long automotive extravaganza celebrating both grass roots enthusiasts and big three corporate involvement. You have to get there early to get a good spot to watch the endless parade, one thing’s for sure we will be back again this year.

Two months later Dream Car Garage was back at another car guy hot spot (actually it was cold and rainy) the Nburgring. Our trip to the Ring was part of the Optima Battery Ultimate Adventure contest, the grand prize being a ten day driving tour of Europe, starting with the Corvette driving school in Mireval, on the Mediterranean and ending up at the Nburgring.

In the Pro Shop body work begins on the Gullwing. After stripping the car minor accident damage is revealed on the driver’s side front inner fender and dents in the delicate nose and tail of the 300 SL.

Episode 4 sees us begin our most unusual project ever, the Krown Winter Driver Buick GN. As any car enthusiast in the rust belt states will tell you winter usually means putting away your classic or hot rod. Our friends at Krown say their T-40 petroleum based rust preventative will keep your car from disintegrating as a result of your local highway depts. liberal application of road salt. We are putting Krown to the test by equipping a low mileage 1986 Buick GN with a set of sticky snow tires and having Tom drive it through the most corrosive winter driving conditions he can find.

This episode’s Dream Cars includes a new Aston Martin roadster and a one off resto mod 68 Charger. The guys at Oddball Kustoms think it would be fun to graft the roof from a 57 Buick sedan onto the Model A…hmmm easier said than done.

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Episode 5 -Modena and Biarritz

The Maserati name and Trident symbol tower over the company’s headquarters in Modena. Although owned by Ferrari the Maserati works presents a much more imposing fade.

Dream Car Garage gets the VIP tour of the historic factory watching as Quattropotes and Granturismos come down the line. Fittingly enough the Modern Dream car is a new Quattroporte that Peter and James, the winner of the Optima contest, get to drive through the picturesque Italian countryside. And just like our Ferrari visit we tour a museum devoted to the mark, this time a private concern owned by the local Parmigiano Reggiano cheese (the region is famous for it) magnate.

The Krown Buick GN gets its new rims and tires from Performance Improvements as well as an Optima Red Top and a CTEK battery charger. However the most important part of winter preparation is the application of Krown rust proofing. Applied annually Krown’s non-evaporating oil spreads along metal and painted surfaces, displaces moisture, creeps into crevices, and creates a thin, self-repairing corrosion- fighting barrier.

Work continues on the Model A at Oddball Kustoms and we redo the floor of the Dream Car Garage set with RaceDeck modular tiles from Snap Lock.

The Vintage Dream Car this episode is perhaps mankind’s greatest achievement, the 59 Cadillac, an Eldorado Biarritz to be precise. The Biarritz name denotes the convertible while Seville was reserved for the companion coupe. Biarritz is a seaside resort on the Atlantic coast, in southwestern France that sounded like a ritzy name to GM executives and no we did not make there on our European trip.

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Episode 6 – Now that’s a Big Truck

Tom gets a test drive a pickup that matches his larger than life personality, a Chevy C5500 custom built by Monroe Truck Equipment. This has to be the ultimate pick up, the Chevy Kodiak and GMC TopKick pickups by Monroe Truck Equipment provide a large truck with an even larger presence (kinda like Tom) – without sacrificing maneuverability, visibility or comfort.

The Monroe trucks can be built anyway you want with 2 or 4 wheel drive, Duramax 6600 V-8 turbo diesel engine or optional Vortec 8100 MD V-8 gasoline engine, Allison 1000 5-speed transmission with overdrive and Ultra AirRide Chassis Air Suspension, AirRide Cab Suspension and AirRide Seats.

Body work on the Gullwing continues in the Pro Shop as the Legendary Motorcar team tackles the tricky metal work on the headlight eyebrows and the door gaps.

Oddball Kustoms begins work on the Model A sixties style custom’s mill, a blown Hemi. Krown’s How Its Made segment goes behind the scenes to see how the Norton Dream Car Garage calendar is made.

We install a CTEK battery charger in Ron Fellows’ own Ron Fellows Edition Arctic White ZO6. As computer systems proliferate in modern vehicles the demands placed on the standard car battery have increased significantly since the muscle car days of the sixties and seventies. DBS, Dead Battery Syndrome, can occur in less than week on some modern performance cars. Hardwiring a compact CTEK charger on your car is the easiest way of ensuring your Vette or any collector car is always ready to go.

The Vintage Dream Car is a 1970 Nova L89, the only known genuine 70 Nova equipped with the ultra rare L89 aluminum head option which lightened the engine by 100 lbs.

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Episode 7 – The Holy Grail

The show opens up in Germany and the Legendary craftsmen are at work plumbing the brakes and fuel lines on the Gullwings’ tube chassis.

Tom drives the new Audi R8 in conditions that really put this all wheel drive supercar to the test. The 4.2 litre V8 produces 420 hp and maximum torque of 317 lb-ft for a top speed of 187 mph The zero to sixty is a touch under 4.6 seconds with the engine spinning at 8,250 rpm, so of course we filmed it in the snow.

Paul Fix at Classic Tube comes to the rescue to make original style brass fuel lines for the Gullwing. Later in the show the Dream Car Garage crew tour the Classic Tube manufacturing facility in Lancaster, NY. Paul shows how to replace your rusted fuel lines with high quality Classic Tube stainless steel lines.

At Oddball it is time to paint the Model A after all that bodywork grafting the 57 Buick roof to the 32 Ford. Joran Olsson from ProSpot demonstrates the ease with which you can perform factory spot welds on our resto mod Camaro convertible. ProSpot designs and manufacturers their own extensive line of spot welders for industry, auto repair and restoration.

One of the highlights of Dream Car Garage’s most recent European adventure was the chance to see inside the secret warehouses of the Mercedes Benz Heritage Centre and Museum. Nicknamed the Holy Grail the warehouses are hidden away in a nondescript area of Stuttgart. Inside are an assortment of restored, original and barn finds Mercedes, ranging from brass era runabouts to recent F! race cars. It is the most amazing collection of Mercedes cars outside of the official Mercedes museum.

Entering the huge warehouse reminds one of the final scene in the Indiana Jones movie where the Ark of the Covenant is hidden amongst thousands of wooden boxes. There is row upon row of Mercedes cars, 600 series Grosser Pullmans from Saudi Arabia, 500 and 540 K’s awaiting restoration, rally cars and prototypes. The walls are stacked with giant wooden and Plexiglas cases holding race cars and other exotic products of the Stuttgart factory like so many matchbox toys.

We also visited the Heritage Centre where you can have your vintage Mercedes restored by factory technicians and with factory parts…no matter what the age of the car. If you have the necessary Euros the Heritage Centre also has some beautiful restorations for sale, including a couple of Gullwings. I was rather partial to the black 500K but would have to finance the million and a half Euros it would take to drive it home.

Peter drives perhaps the ultimate performance Buick. This weeks vintage dream car is a Saturn yellow GSX powered by Buick’s 455 producing 510 ft.-lb. of torque at just 2800 rpm for a low 13 second quarter mile.

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Episode 8 – Three Liters, 215 HP

The restoration of the BASF Gullwing takes place almost entirely at the Legendary Motorcar facility. There are only three areas of the restoration process that Legendary calls in specialists, chrome plating (covered by Paul’s Chrome in episode 5), engine and upholstery. More about interior trim in episode 10, this week’s Pro Shop segment is all about the Gullwing’s direct fuel injected straight six.

Mike from Active Engines drops by to fill Peter in on the challenges they faced rebuilding the 2996 cc Mercedes engine, it is those three liters by the way which give the 300SL its name. Active Engines, located in Mississauga, Ontario has had a long association with Dream Car Garage, building engines for many of our television projects as well as Peter’s race cars and Legendary restorations.Code:www.activeengines.com

The Gullwings engine is based on the more prosaic six cylinder found in Mercedes “Adenauer” sedans. The engine featured a number of modifications, the carburetor was replaced by an advanced direct fuel injection system boosting output to 158 kW (215 hp) The engine had to be tilted 45 degrees to accommodate the low hood line. The angle of the engine also served to reduce the amount of space in the passenger-side footwell.

The Gullwings race bread heritage; mechanical fuel injection and large oil cooler, necessitated a careful and frequent maintenance schedule. The fuel injection system would continue to provide fuel to the engine between turning off the ignition and the engine stopping. The excess fuel would wash the cylinder walls and dilute the oil, while street driving didn’t allow the car to warm up enough to evaporate the gas in the oil.

So once they get the keys the executives at BASF should drive the Gullwing like they stole it and make sure they change the oil every 1000 miles.

The dream cars this episode include a Porsche 959 and a Baldwin Motion 1973 Camaro. Tom and Hurley Haywood drive Brumos Porches’ twin turbo eighties super car in Florida. Peter gets behind the wheel of a rare second generation Motion Camaro.

The floor of the Dream Car Garage set gets a SnapLock makeover. SnapLock is the manufacturer of RaceDeck garage flooring and a pioneer in the development of modular floors for your garage, sports or even dance floors.Code:www.racedeck.com

RaceDeck comes I many styles and colors, including custom designs and logos. You can even install their RaceDeck PRO, which is polished diamond plate steel for the ultimate garage floor.

Each year Dream Car Garage and Norton collaborate to create a calendar featuring many of the Legendary cars seen on the show. If you have not been lucky enough to score one from a Norton representative you can always download it from their web site: www.nortonabrasives.com

The calendar is shot by photographer Dale Amy who joins us for a quick lesson on how to properly take a picture of your dream car.

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Episode 9 – The Upper Crust

Tom and Peter sample the upper crust of the automotive world, this weeks dream cars include a new Rolls Royce Phantom and a true motoring aristocrat the Cadillac V16.

It is commonly thought that the term upper crust is an ancient one derived from the household bread being divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or the upper crust.

Cadillac has the distinction of creating the only mass produced V16 automobiles. GM’s flagship built a V16 in two series, the first known as the 452 (its displacement) from 1930 until 1937, and the second, the Series 90, between 1938 and 1940. The 90 series took its name from Cadillac’s model designation.

In order to get the jump on its domestic and foreign competition, Cadillac leaked information that it was building a V12 and then stunned the public and its rivals, Packard, Pierce-Arrow and Lincoln with the V16, unveiled at with New York Auto Show on January 4, 1930.

The first series of V16′s employed a narrow 45 bank angle to reduce its width, for use in the new Cadillac chassis. Developed by Owen Nacker the V16 was well engineered, with a counterweighted crankshaft, overhead valves, and hydraulic tappets.

The 452 V16 had a 3 in bore and a 4 in stroke, giving a displacement of 452 in (7.4 L). It was rated at 185HP that was capable of powering some of the lighter examples to 100 mph. The ’38-’40 V16′s had the swiftest and quietest acceleration of any car in the world at the time regardless of weight. A total of 3878 Series 452s were built. Recent archival work in Rolls Royce company records show the guys at Crewe were amazed by the multicylinder Cadillacs engineering and ability to produce a better car than Rolls Royce at considerably less cost.

Cadillac didn’t forget the V16, ever wonder why the hoods on its seventies Eldorados were so long. They actually considered a V12 or V16 super car and produced a number of design studies throughout the late sixties and early seventies.

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The body work on the BASF Gullwing is complete and the Legendary team applies the epoxy primer and guide coats in preparation for the Mercedes silver top coat in Episode 11. There is a lot of hand sanding and prep work to do before then so in the next episode we will take a break and catch up with work on the interior.

Dream Car Garage also visits Ludwigshafen, the home of BASF corporate headquarters and the world’s largest integrated chemical complex. BASF employees 37,000 in Ludwigshafen alone.

Tom and Peter demonstrate the amazing versatility of Norton’s’ 45 second Super fast Speed-Grip epoxy. The use of two part epoxies is becoming common place in modern body shops and new car assembly. Used properly epoxy is stronger than welding and the guys at Legendary have found numerous other applications beyond sticking Peter’s head to the side of a race car.

Seriously Speed-Grip can be used to bond metal to metal, metal to plastic, fiberglass etc. We have put the Norton product to great use in fabricating custom dashboards and repairing rare plastic pieces. I have used Speed-Grip to repair floor pans as well as delicate areas around a moonroof where welding would have required removal of the glass sunroof and a good deal of the car’s interior.

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Episode 10 – F50

In the BASF Pro Shop the Mercedes Gullwing gets the ultimate aftermarket accessory, a set of matching luggage. The two or three piece luggage for the Gullwing was never a Mercedes factory item but was sold through dealers or independently.

Fitted luggage originated with touring cars in the twenties and was a popular upscale automotive accessory until the late nineteen fifties when affordable air travel began to supplant long cross country road trips.

The luggage for the BASF 57 Gullwing was specially made by Ollie Dare of Dare Classics, the godfather of 300SL luggage. He has made hundreds of sets since the early seventies and considering they only made 1,400 cars, there is a good chance that a Gullwing with matching luggage is one of his.

The Gullwing’s luggage is finished in matching red leather with a Mercedes plaid cloth lining. The luggage is truly a work of art that will complement the 300SL’s interior and add value to the finished car.

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Kyle Tucker, President of Detroit Speed & Engineering drops by to help us out with our resto-mod Camaro rag top project. The Detroit Speed team supplied us with one of their beautifully engineered hydroformed subframes.

Perhaps the most exciting news in Episode 10 is that the Krown Winter Driver Project car is being given away!!! How would you like to get your sweaty mitts on a low mileage 1986 Buick Grand National? Powered by a potent 3.8 liter turbocharged V6, the Darth Vader black coupes had a top speed of 120mph and a sub 9 second zero to sixty.

The Grand National, which grew out of the Regal T-type was a spiritual and physical return to the muscle car era. A collector car from the day it rolled off the assembly line this particular GN can be yours, just go the Krown web site and tell them your best Krown story. How has Krown helped to protect your vehicle? What have you used Krown products on? How long have you been using Krown?

Episode 10′s Modern Dream Car is the Ferrari F50, introduced in 1995 to celebrate the company’s 50th anniversary (Ferrari’s fiftieth, F50 get it). The guys at Modena went all out on the design if not the name. A carbon fiber bodied roadster with a 4.7 liter naturally-aspirated 60 valve V12 engine that was developed from the 3.5L V12 used in the 1992 Ferrari F92 Formula One car.

The 12-cylinder, 4.75-liter, rear-mounted engine produces 520 horsepower, propelling the car from 0 to 60 miles per hour in 3.7 seconds and taking the carbon-fiber body to a top speed of 203 mph. Ferrari claimed that the F50 would is be the first and last car Ferrari would build based on a Formula One engine because of increasingly tough emission standards in the United States and elsewhere. “It will be impossible to do it again,” he said. If you missed the dut airing of Episode 3 of Dream Car Garage make sure you catch it in reruns, we visited the Ferrari factory and museum in Modena.

In a bit of cleaver marketing Ferrari made only 349 F50s to preserve the cars cache and elusive status. According to Ferrari spokesman at the time, Antonio Ghini, “Our studies showed a market for 350 cars like this…but Ferraris are something cultural, a monument. They must be hard to find, so we will produce one less car than the market.” Peter also drives another open car, a 1928 Chevy beach racer …make sure you catch the story about the hat.

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Episode 11 – Paint

The long awaited day finally arrives; the BASF Gullwing is finished in Glasurit 90 Line waterborne paint, the shade an original 1957 Mercedes silver. BASF even helped us locate original paint chips for the Mercedes. While in Europe we managed a side trip to Munster to see the BASF paint facility and talk about the science and psychology of paint colors. In keeping with BASF’s industry leading environmental commitment the clear coat was the new VOC compliant HS-Multi Clear.

The Legendary team has only reached this stage after hours upon hours of hard work and late nights that have gone into the 300SL. The Gullwing is looking like a car again; the body is on the frame, the engine and drive line installed and everything better than new. The silver beautifully complements the red leather interior and luggage that will make this dream car the envy of any show field.

Although we started with a complete vehicle, once the body was stripped there was rust and accident damage to deal with. Episodes four and six document these repairs and show number nine details the amazing amount of prep work that is required for a show car finish.

This week’s episode opens at Barber Motorsport Park and the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum.

Barber Motor Sports

Barber Motor Sports Park Museum

Pat Staton from YearOne brought out their evil looking Bandit development car to show us how they make second generation F-Bodies go like hell. YearOne has been searching its Georgia stomping grounds for solid Trans Ams to build modern versions of the iconic black and gold Firebirds from the Smokey and the Bandit movie.

YearOne will build you a Burt Reynolds Edition Trans Am in different stages of tune, I would recommend the Ban III. The ultimate Bandit, the Ban III comes with a 515-horse dry-sump LS7 7.0 liter engine, and upgrades include a 605-horse dry-sump LS7, or a monster 8.8 liter (540-inch) Pontiac V8 making over 650 horsepower. As YearOne says; “The Ban III offers a level of performance rarely seen in a street-legal vehicle, and is designed specifically for experienced drivers”.

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“East bound and down, loaded up and truckin’…” indeed!

Tom and Peter visit with Tom Abrams from Reliable Carriers, Dream Car Garage’s official transport company. Reliable Carriers

Also on deck for episode eleven are a turbo charged Viper and Richard Petty’s 1971 Plymouth Road Runner, a piece of NASCAR history.

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Episode 12 – Extreme Velocity

Final assembly on the BASF Mercedes Gullwing and Oddball Kustoms show car.

Tom and Peter are back at Barber Motorsports Park to drive another great car from YearOne’s private skunk works, their Dynacorn repop 67 Mustang Fastback race car.

The goal of YearOne’s Ghostworks Garage was to use the reproduction body and mate it with a Ford crate engine and the latest aftermarket suspension and brake systems, to build a killer track car. The tubbed and roll caged 67 body features a new Ford Racing 347 cubic inch Boss crate engine with 450hp backed by a Tremec 5-speed and a Ford 8.8-inch rear end.

Check out this link to YearOne for more details on their 67 Mustang build: Tony from Lant Insurance Brokers drops by the Dream Car Garage set to talk about high tech ways to keep your own Dream Car safe from the villains who would like to see it at a chop shop.

Lant Insurance Brokers CTEK Battery Chargers announce their Test Pilot program, where you our loyal viewer can get (if you’re lucky) a free CTEK charger of your own to field test. Check out their web site for all the information on this program:

CTEK CTEK really is the smartest battery charger in the world, used exclusively at Dream Car Garage and Legendary Motorcar. Please see our articles page for more on CTEK chargers and how to avoid DBS, dead Battery Syndrome.

Dream Car Garage welcomes back Reese Cox and the guys from MTI racing with a test drive of their Extreme Velocity SS ZO6 Corvette. Reese made his television dut last season when he helped build an MTI tweaked ZO6 for us to take over to Europe on our first trip to the Nurburgring.

MTI’s Extreme Velocity 454 SS ZO6 transforms the already world beating Corvette LS7 into a 700HP/650 torque monster. Expect to see a lot more of this car next season. In the meantime have a look at MTI’s site:

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Episode 13 – Dut

It has been a hectic season but the Gullwing has been completed beautifully and in record time. We did hear a lot of comments that we had set ourselves and impossible deadline (June 22nd. end of the 2008 season dut episodes of Dream Car Garage) and that it would take us three years to restore such a complex car.

Anyone who has restored a car themselves knows how long a complete resto can take and how unforeseen problems, can cause major delays. Legendary Motorcar had to deal with many issues but they have a dedicated team of restoration experts who worked night and day to complete this concourse restoration for BASF. The pictures speak for themselves: