Renowned car-builder Dave Kindig, of Kindig It Designs, whipped the covers off a controversial new build at the 2018 SEMA Show today.
The prolific hot rodder took a squillion-dollar 1955 Mercedes 300SL “Gullwing” and built it into a custom hot rod, including ditching the renowned, much-loved fuel-injected straight-six engine for a V8!
This isn’t the first time a fabled Gullwing has appeared at the SEMA Show, with Chip Foose unveiling a street machine-styled example in 2011, while legendary painter Von Dutch was actually commissioned to perform a radical flamed paint job on one back in the 1950s when the car was near-new!
What do you think of the Gullwing hot rod? Tell us in the comments below
![]()
Iain Kelly
Contributing Journalist
A love of classic American and European cars drove Iain Kelly to motoring journalism straight out of high school, via the ownership of a tired 1975 HJ Holden Monaro.
For nearly 20 years he has worked on magazines and websites catering to modified late model high-performance Japanese and European tuner cars, as well as traditional hot rods, muscle cars and street machines. Some of these titles include Auto Salon, LSX Tuner, MOTOR, Forged, Freestyle Rides, Roadkill, SPEED, and Street Machine. He counts his trip to the USA to help build Mighty Car Mods’ “Subarute” along with co-authoring their recent book, The Cars of Mighty Car Mods, among his career highlights.
Iain lends his expertise to CarsGuide for a variety of advice projects, along with legitimising his automotive obsession with regular OverSteer contributions.
Although his practical skills working on cars is nearly all self-taught, he still loves nothing more than spending quality time in the shed working on his project car, a 1964 Pontiac. He also admits to also having an addiction to E30 BMWs and Subaru Liberty RS Turbos, both of which he has had multiple examples of. With car choices like that, at least his mum thinks he is cool.
About Author
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
