Mercedes Classic Center Moves to Huge New Building in the LBC

• Mercedes-Benz has opened a new, larger Classic Center in Long Beach, California.

• The center restores and refurbishes great Mercedes of yesteryear.

• They also sell—or make—hard-to-find parts.

Having a beautiful old car is one thing, but keeping it running—and turning and stopping—is quite another.

Mercedes-Benz is proud of its motoring heritage and wants to preserve it. To do that takes old-world techniques and craftsmen (and women) who know how to use old-style tools and machinery to keep the great cars of yesteryear on the road. To that end there’s a Mercedes Classic Center in Fellbach, Germany, just outside Stuttgart, and another one in California. The California shop just expanded, moving from a relatively small operation in Irvine (the former Saleen headquarters 20 years ago) into a huge space at its Vehicle Preparation Center in Long Beach.

The ginormous building is the former home of McDonnel Douglas, which built everything from B-17s (under contract from Boeing at the time), to the DC-8, DC-9, and DC-10 jets. The huge neon sign “Fly DC Jets” still sits atop the building’s south end.

Most of the building is taken up by Mercedes' Vehicle Preparation Center, where new cars are processed before being sent to dealers around the region. But a huge chunk of floorspace is taken up as the new home of the Mercedes Classic Center.