Extraordinary post-war coachwork on a prestigious pre-war chassis Stored on the Klein property for decades An ambitious but worthy restoration project Michael Graff Wolff Metternich’s Maybach Register indicates that this particular SW38, the prestigious top-of-the-line six-cylinder chassis considered the equal of its competitor Mercedes-Benz, was originally completed in 1939, and supplied with unknown coachwork to the Frankensteiner wine company in Frankfurt.

Following World War II, the car’s chassis was made available to Maybach and rebodied as one of five or six cars rebodied after the war, either under Maybach’s direct auspices or for a client.

It was sent to local Stuttgart coachbuilder Wendler, which in 1948 built this handsome streamlined body.

Of extremely modern ponton-sport lines, fully enveloping the chassis and with fenders fully integrated into the rest of the coachwork, the design nonetheless nods at pre-war tradition, including the low vee’d windshield and rear-hinged ...