Not to the eye because things just flow together from the horizontal to vertical. When you put a horizontal panel against a verticle panel as you mentioned, you may see a difference when you bolt it on the car.

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95 SL500 Smoke Silver, Parchment 64K
07 E350 4matic Station Wagon White 34K
02 E320 4Matic Silver/grey 80K
05 F150 Silver 44K

the metalic flacks in the paint will vary in their orientation with angle and distance of the paint gun when its sprayed....thats why for most colors its important to spray them at the same time......if you watch videos of auto manufacturing plants the panels are held in jigs that hold them in position realative to how they will be mounted.....like I said this is more pronounced on some colors than others......

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Proud owner of ....
1971 280SE W108
1979 300SD W116
1983 300D W123
1975 Ironhead Sportster chopper
1987 GMC 3/4 ton 4X4 Diesel
1989 Honda Civic (Heavily modified)
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Section 609 MVAC Certified
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"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche

andersbenz -

You have a Colorado Beige? It is THE UGLIEST color I've ever seen on a Benz. Bar None.

If I've hurt your feelings, pull yourself together - I have a 77 280SE in... COLORADO BEIGE.

I was thinking of starting a thread on "Worst Benz Color Ever" and was planning on being sole winner, hands down.

Now I have to share the honors...

On the bright side... it makes the Bamboo interior look normal (as in "good")

Sorry for the hijack,
Kevin

Ya - I think MB hired color blind designers for a while. My feeling is that you should only have black or silver MB's - HA

I am painting my 61 fin in black. I found a great body guy in Oakville Ontario who let me strip the car in his shop and he will fix dents,sand, tape and paint it for $2500 Canadian.

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1961 220SB Hydrak
1966 230S - Too Good for Parts
1981 300SD - now in Oakville

What Alan said. Going this route is definitely a better and cheaper option in the long run than macco or earl scheib. The deal with some of those cheaper paint jobs is low quality paint, and poor prep work.

I have seen cars prepped outside the booth only to sit there for two hours collecting bondo dust and what not before they get rolled in.

I am no expert, but my understanding is that the cheaper places also don't use a catalyst that allows for the paint to completely dry/harden like a factory finish. I have experienced the agony of trying to sand off an old macco paint job on a car that I used to own because the reputable shop I was going to use wouldn't touch it. the crap paint heats up and gets gummy when sanding and you will end up going through a boat load of sanding discs before you are finished.

The vocational schools will certainly take longer to finish the job but 9 times out of 10 you will get a nice paint job that you can be proud of. Vocational schools will teach the correct way to paint a car and that means that the inside of your trunk lid and your door jams will math the car. nothing says hoopty like off color door jams.

just my $.02

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1979 Thistle Green 300D 272,xxx miles
1984 Orient Red 300 D 4 spd Euro Import - 189,xxx miles
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Lofat Productions
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I know someone who had his 1982 300SD painted by a vocation school. It took a while but they did a very nice job. They took out all of the dents, laid down some real nice paint and even wet sanded it. Along with replacing a few panals to get ride of some rust. Overall it isn't a perfect job, but it looks like a $3k+ paint job. With the other work it probably would have pushed the total well over $5k at a body shop. I don't remember what he paid but it was a real good price.

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1999 SL500
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200