A car enthusiast turned a teenage dream into reality over the summer. He bought the Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Gullwing that he had been dreaming of since he was 16. He even postponed his honeymoon to go to California and take it home. However, his dream car was leaking everywhere and turned out to be a complete nightmare.
Hoovie’s ultimate dream car became his WORST NIGHTMARE!
It is not every day that you get the chance to buy the car that you have been dreaming of since you were 16. So, car enthusiast Tyler Hoover postponed his honeymoon after getting married to April, bought plane tickets to Los Angeles instead, planning to come back with his brand-new 70-year-young Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Gullwing.
The iconic 300 SL was the car that reshaped the automotive world. Little did Mercedes-Benz know back in 1954 that it would one day sit among the most coveted models of the brand among collectors who orbit around rare models as the Earth orbits around the Sun.
Mercedes-Benz rolled out approximately 1,400 units until 1957, when Mercedes started building the roadster, a tamed variant for those who did not want all eyes on them when popping the doors open at the gas station, and for those who wanted the wind-in-your-hair feeling.
Most of the Gullwings ended up in the United States, imported by the man who convinced Mercedes to build them, Austrian-born, New York-based entrepreneur Max Hoffman. He basically convinced the Americans that they needed and wanted such a sports car, one that would be based on the W194 racer.
It was European, which automatically converted it into a full-blown exotic, it was innovative, glamorous, and lightning fast. It checked all the right boxes of a sports car, and America loved it. The car launched not in its home market, Germany, but in the United States, following an official unveiling event in New York.
It was super light (that is what the SL stood for!) and the fastest production car of its era, as its fuel-injected 3.0-liter inline-six pushed it all the way to 162 mph (260 kph). The engine produces 215 horsepower (220 metric horsepower) and 202 pound-feet (274 Newton meters) of torque.
However, buying one was easier said than done. Gullwings are expensive cars, selling for anywhere between $1 million and $3.5 million when the aluminum frame is involved. To remind everyone that these cars are nearly untouchable, a 1956 example sold for a mind-blowing $9,335,000 at an auction in 2025.
Tyler Hoover sat and watched the market go through the roof, and his dream drifted further and further. But all of a sudden, things took an unexpected turn. One day, he got a phone call. At the other end of the line, a classic car expert told him he had found the car for him and made him an offer that he couldn’t refuse.
So, Tyler and his wife, April, boarded a plane from Kansas to Los Angeles to get the car. The moment he laid eyes on the gorgeous Benz, sitting on the showroom floor at the Mercedes-Benz Classic Center, he couldn’t hold back the tears, and neither could Mrs.
Hoover. The emotional reaction was a burst of joy caused by a dream finally coming true.
Tyler traded in a Bugatti Veyron and a Ferrari 599 for his dream car. But it wasn’t all milk and honey. Even though it had been in the same family for over 40 years, the car had been sitting for the past decade. It didn’t drive, it didn’t run, and it leaked a river of fluids.
However, it did run once, because this Benz has never been a garage queen. Its odometer reads 117,000 miles. The car had never been restored, but it was painted silver over the original Graphite Gray, while the interior had been reupholstered in black leather, which replaced the original red one.
Yet, here it was, his numbers-matching, accident-free Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Gullwing, a dream come true 23 years after he first saw such a car at a Barrett-Jackson auction. He jumped in, over the thick door sill that covers the tubular frame, and slipped into the driver’s seat. The first time he “drove” the car, he was actually pushed around the showroom and into the repair shop.
A frame-off restoration is out of reach for the moment, but he at least wanted to have it running and driving and stop leaking. A few hours and $100,000 later, the new owner circles the parking lot as the Mercedes travels on its own power for the first time.
Tyler took it straight to a rally in Colorado, but he ruined the car: he drove 20 miles with the hand brake on and “cooked” the drum brakes. It was an expensive mistake, $1,500 for the whole set.
His wheels got “boiled,” too, and the oil cooler exploded, so the car went right back into the repair shop. That didn’t take long, but it took a lot of money: $15,000. On his way back home, he stopped by Jay Leno’s Garage. The car collector has a Gullwing of his own, one that he rescued from a shipping container.
He also visited Doug DeMuro in San Diego. Doug is the one who guided his first steps on YouTube and helped him gain internet fame. DeMuro has over five million subscribers, while Tyler sits at 1.65 million and counting.
Once he got home, Tyler parked the car right in the middle of the living room, between the sofa and the fireplace. But with the transmission leaking oil and a few other “minor” leaks, the last thing the Mrs. would want to see on the living room floor would be a puddle of oil.
