Copyright © Paul Griffin, July 2025
‘Well, congratulations!
What you have here is a historic car of international desire, and one that would ordinarily have a value of more than £1 million in the market. Except, that market is closed to you. There are not so many of these cars and each of them has an identity by reference to its manufacturer stampings. This car is widely known to be stolen – a hot car in more ways than one…
So, selling would highlight a criminal offence. And, as stolen goods, you would not be able to pass legitimate title to a buyer anyway. Not only is your car worthless, but you find yourself in quite some personal jeopardy.
My friend, take a seat. You have come to the right person!
What we need now is to find the details of a pukka sibling that has fallen from the view of the enthusiast clubs and the aficionados over the years. And then to carry out the work to be able to pass off your car as that one. Some tinkering with the chassis stampings and other component numbers, and then a sprinkling of plausible history. We should be able to get credible paperwork too.
So, from a worthless maggot to a splendid butterfly, toot sweet. And I think I know just the car for the job…’
Klaus Kienle
Early one day in May 2023, the Stuttgart Department of Public Prosecution staged a coordinated raid on the business and family of Klaus Kienle, the proprietor of Kienle Automobiltechnik GmbH. Kienle had a reputation as a dealer and restorer of high-value Mercedes-Benz historic cars, particularly the 300 SL model in its gullwing and roadster forms. According to the police and a member of the German Parliament, Kienle had also developed a reputation for nefarious practices, with contemporary reports speaking of commercial fraud and the manufacture and sale of counterfeit or duplicate cars.
Image – Autobild
There had been rumblings in collector circles for some time. And by the time the law came calling there was a crescendo in relation to a 300 SL roadster, the 1961 Geneva Motor Show car. Delivered in fantasy yellow, although soon changed to red, this was chassis 198042-10-002786. After some 50 years of undisturbed slumber in a Swiss farming community in the ownership of Heinrich Zollinger, the car seemed to have fallen off the sweep of all usual radars.
But not that of Ralph Grieser, the proprietor of the classic car business Depot3 near Koblenz in Germany. Grieser bought the car in the autumn of 2022. But on repatriating it to Germany, Grieser found his application to register the car refused by the licensing authorities. Notwithstanding the provenance of the Geneva Motor Show car, another 300 SL with that same chassis number was already registered. Digging deeper, Grieser found that that other car, bearing chassis number 2786 and finished in fantasy yellow, had been offered for sale by Kienle in 2019.
The 300 SL in Fantasy Yellow
For some time, the German Parliamentary Working Group for Automotive Heritage had been investigating the damaging effects of counterfeit historic cars. The group’s leader and Member of Parliament, Carsten Muller, was known for his concerns that these activities endangered the social acceptance of historic vehicles. Grieser turned to him. Muller referred the matter to the Stuttgart authorities, and the Kienle raid followed. Amid a public unravelling of denials and counterclaims, the circumstances of the fantasy yellow 300 SL became clearer.
That car had left the factory with a chassis number ending 2765. Reported stolen in Frankfurt in May 1983, the car then remained out of sight until 1992 when it reappeared - wearing a chassis number ending 2786. It had also come to be finished in matching fantasy yellow. At that time, the 1961 Geneva Motor Show car, chassis 2786 had been sleeping quietly in Switzerland for some 20 years and would continue to do so for another 30.
Following spells in Belgium and Germany, the fantasy yellow car came to Kienle in 2019. Kienle identified the car as a wrong-un’. Having made the then owner aware of that, Kienle purchased the car at a price of 600,000 Euros, reflecting its impaired character. But freshly restored, bearing a chassis stamping of 2786 and finished in fantasy yellow, the previously stolen car was soon legitimate again - and on its way to Asia and the ownership of the Sultan of Johor. In October 2019, the Sultan paid Kienle a purchase price of 1.3 million Euros, the going rate for what was advertised and invoiced – 300 SL chassis 2786 with matching numbers and clear provenance.
Seizures and Confiscations
The Kienle raid led to the authorities’ seizure of vehicles, components and documents from Kienle premises and related seizures elsewhere. One of the cars confiscated was a black 300 SL Roadster, seized from Max Schuster in Augsburg. Here was a car sold to him by Kienle as a proper 300 SL with matching numbers, including chassis 0367. And at 1.2 million euros, which was a price consistent with that description.
But this car had had a history with Kienle before the sale to Max Schuster. Kienle had previously sold the car to a purchaser who came to have doubts about its legitimacy. That purchaser’s court proceedings led to an expert examination that showed the car to have inconsistencies with the positioning of its chassis identification. The court action was resolved by Kienle’s taking back the car and making a compensatory payment to the owner. But shortly afterwards, Kienle sold the car to Max Schuster as a flawless original with matching numbers. By now, the position of the chassis identification had changed again. Kienle justified this intervention on the grounds that the positioning had been wrong before and he had therefore changed it to make the car original again…
In a subsequent examination of the car, it was found that a first intervention with the chassis had seen its original numbers ground away and the resulting injury soothed with tin before replacement numbers were stamped. With the more recent manipulations, the relevant section of the chassis was removed entirely and a new section welded in, complete with convenient numbers.
Another seizure concerned a 1955 300 SL Gullwing. This car had associations with Kienle and displayed a chassis number the same as that of a historically documented 300 SL that has lived quietly for many years at the Caister Castle Car Museum in the East of England.
A theme was emerging - of stolen or questionable 300 SLs being given a veneer of legitimacy by attaching to them the chassis and component identities of cars that had long been lost, in museum care or otherwise out of sight.
Today and Tomorrow
Given the visibility of the police investigations and the associated press and social media brouhaha, it seemed inevitable that Kienle’s famously fragile financial standing would be put under pressure. As well as those looking to find the doorway out of their Kienle relationships, there were yet more moving the other way through it - and in pursuit of their money. Towards the end of 2023, insolvency proceedings were opened against Kienle Automobiltechnik GmbH.
The insolvency administrator described the Kienle business as a composite of trading and restoration, with the restoration business routinely under-estimating the cost of works and collecting advance payments up to 100% of those costs. Claimants numbered more than 100 and the reported liabilities were in the order of 20 million Euros. The claims concerned many different wrongdoings including falsifying vehicle and component numbers, duplicating complete vehicles, and removing original components for unauthorised sale during restorations.
The insolvency administrator initiated a sales process for what remained of the business. Reports have it that Kienle had earlier been in negotiation with Mercedes-Benz for a sale of the business at a price in excess of 10 million Euros. Given this background and the close relationship of Kienle and Mercedes-Benz, it seems unsurprising that in February 2024 what remained of the Kienle business was sold to Mercedes-Benz Heritage GmbH. Perhaps more surprising was that the purchase price for the parts, machinery, people, data and know-how was only some 3 million Euros. A low price for what was to be the nucleus for a then nascent, but now burgeoning, Mercedes-Benz-branded heritage business.
Now the business of Kienle Automobiltechnik is no more and Klaus Kienle finds himself contemplating some time yet in the legal and parliamentary processes that have succeeded it.
Not Only a Fantasy Colour
Early industry comments borrowed from the authorities’ first public reports and their allegations of fraudulent trading and the illicit production and sale of duplicate 300 SLs. Among the questions raised was how such duplication could have been financially worthwhile. As desirable as a Mercedes 300 SL may be for many, the risk-reward ratio that has justified the exercise of nefarious skills on the more rarified models of Ferrari, Alfa Romeo and Bugatti, seemed not to justify the similar recreation of Stuttgart’s comparatively humdrum fare.
With many examples of manipulated and falsified 300 SLs having now come to light, the available evidence provides some verification for this initial view. Although there are examples of new cars being built-up from component parts, Kienle’s predominant activities appear to have been more matters of chassis metal manipulation and vehicle trading than of vehicle production. In denying the charges against him, Kienle asserted that the fantasy yellow car was not a copy but an original car. On this view, the car was a genuine, factory-built 300 SL – albeit one that had had its provenance interrupted by theft and had then been subjected to physical interference by the changing of its apparent identity from that of chassis 2765 to that of chassis 2786. A car of original components perhaps, but not one that retained its identity.
The Restorer’s Art?
As well as the trading activities, these investigations have also considered Kienle’s works of maintenance and restoration in relation to cars entrusted to Kienle by their owners. For a business that espoused the principles of keeping vehicles as they were when they left the factory, the evidence suggests that the corresponding practices may have been less worthy. Among the reports are examples of component cannibalism, and taking existing cars apart in one way and reassembling them in another.
What began as a local investigation into car sales activities near Stuttgart has now come to disclose activities and practices on a broader and international scale. These have concerned Mercedes 300 SLs, but it seems fanciful to think that these activities are limited to these models alone. Forensic analysis has enabled the identification of component numbers which have been removed from cars before other replacement numbers have been punched into the re-finished surface. But the severity of the intervention with the chassis of some cars has shown that even these techniques may not be capable of providing the connection of today’s car with an original that earlier left the factory.
The Mercedes 300 SL in both its gullwing and roadster forms is a renowned historic vehicle, and an object of desire and considerable value. Owners can consider themselves fortunate to have the opportunity to cherish these cars, to maintain them and to pass them on showing as much originality and authenticity as when they arrived. But the Kienle case shows that other views are available, and that care needs to be taken not only when buying a historic car, but also when entrusting it to others for its care and well-being - even where those others are of eminent repute.
Lessons Keenly Learnt?
And what of those once-noble 300 SLs that came to spend time as laboratory rats at Ditzingen? The fantasy yellow roadster ‘restored’ by Kienle in 2019 seems to have no claim to the identity, originality or authenticity of 2786. But that would not seem to prevent its owner’s legitimate claim to the genuineness and identity of 2765, on the basis of original components or continuous history. Matters of title are likely to be more difficult though, given the car’s earlier theft.
And just how far has the infection spread? Among the visitors to RM Sotheby’s auction at Munich Motorworld late last year were the investigator and experts from the Kienle prodeedings together with officers from the Munich Police Headquarters. The subject of their attention and analytical investigation was Lot 153, a 300 SL roadster from the Dieter Aumann collection. The car was described as showing chassis number 0672 among its ‘matching numbers’. It was subsequently declared sold at a price just over 1 million Euros.
Paul Griffin - Copyright © Paul Griffin, July 2025