daveenty
Senior Member
- Joined
- Jun 21, 2005
- Messages
- 3,545
- Reaction score
- 2,647
- Location
- The Frozen North :(
- Your Mercedes
- 2019 AMG S Class Coupe
I went to Zunsport today to get the car fitted out with a decent set of front grills.
For anyone who's familiar with these cars you'll know that the frontal area, particularly the lower grill, is extremely vulnerable to damage from stones etc. due to the amount of radiators which are secreted away in there.
I arranged this trip a couple of weeks ago after speaking with Peter Langston who's the owner as nobody is doing an after market grill for these cars. He was supposed to be getting one in for test purposes a while ago but the owner never showed up, so I grabbed the chance to get mine in as a demo for them.
It was a long day (nearly 6 hours of boredom and lots of free coffee) but, after several hours of measuring and working the shapes out, including loads of test fits, they are now developing the prototypes which should be ready for fitting next month and, if all goes OK, they will then go into production shortly after.
The lower opening seemed to create the most problems, probably due to the cheap and nasty Mercedes push on splitter flexing a bit, so this has hopefully been taken into account and will fit all the W213s.
These grills will fit over the original ones with a series of clips and will come in either polished silver, like a chrome effect, or gloss black which mine will be. I did ask about fitting them behind the intake but it would involve the removal of all the front of the car which, given that these are supposed to be a DIY project, would not be practical. they'll hopefully be subtle enough to be barely noticeable yet strong enough to withstand a hit and protect the cooling system.
I'll update when I go back for the test fitting meanwhile, have a couple of pictures which I've managed to grab: -
This is how they come from Mercedes: -
And this is during the first test fit: -
The masking tape is obviously for paint protection, and if you zoom in on the second picture you should be able to see some of the coolers through the lower grill.
For anyone who's familiar with these cars you'll know that the frontal area, particularly the lower grill, is extremely vulnerable to damage from stones etc. due to the amount of radiators which are secreted away in there.
I arranged this trip a couple of weeks ago after speaking with Peter Langston who's the owner as nobody is doing an after market grill for these cars. He was supposed to be getting one in for test purposes a while ago but the owner never showed up, so I grabbed the chance to get mine in as a demo for them.
It was a long day (nearly 6 hours of boredom and lots of free coffee) but, after several hours of measuring and working the shapes out, including loads of test fits, they are now developing the prototypes which should be ready for fitting next month and, if all goes OK, they will then go into production shortly after.
The lower opening seemed to create the most problems, probably due to the cheap and nasty Mercedes push on splitter flexing a bit, so this has hopefully been taken into account and will fit all the W213s.
These grills will fit over the original ones with a series of clips and will come in either polished silver, like a chrome effect, or gloss black which mine will be. I did ask about fitting them behind the intake but it would involve the removal of all the front of the car which, given that these are supposed to be a DIY project, would not be practical. they'll hopefully be subtle enough to be barely noticeable yet strong enough to withstand a hit and protect the cooling system.
I'll update when I go back for the test fitting meanwhile, have a couple of pictures which I've managed to grab: -
This is how they come from Mercedes: -
And this is during the first test fit: -
The masking tape is obviously for paint protection, and if you zoom in on the second picture you should be able to see some of the coolers through the lower grill.