Kienle, a Germany-based restoration shop working with Mercedes-Benz classics, is facing a lawsuit alleging that the company defrauded its customers by selling them counterfeit 300 SL coupes and roadsters, Benzclub reports.
The prosecutor’s office conducted searches in Kienle offices and the private households of its administrative personnel. While no specifics have been revealed, the media talk about certain condemning cues that were found. It also remains to be seen what criminal charges and prison terms the executives may be facing.
Per the investigation, the company was building fake Mercedes-Benz 300 SL models instead of restoring genuine cars. One of the customers inadvertently exposed the fraud when he decided to commission his vehicle and make it road-legal. The system returned an error claiming the car had been registered earlier as a different model. A preliminary investigation revealed that there were earlier reported cases of failed registration attempts.
The 300 SL cars depicted in the gallery and the video here are (probably) real and provided purely for illustration purposes.
