I did the usual wash and clay bar, then started in with sanding the hood and trunk. I used 1200 and 1500 as needed with some soap/lube stuff that's made for sanding and special paper made by Meguires. Mercedes uses really hard paint/clear and the crap hood paint is hard as a rock, so I actually sanded it more than once to get it smooth and could do it again if I wanted to. It is still not perfect but I'm satisfied with it.
Here are some sanding pics:
Those hood sanding pics were actually taken a while ago, I mess around with this car as time and whim allows. Today, I had some time and got motivated to attack the sides of the car. Unfortunately, I did not take "before" pics but the doors had some major scratches + scrapes from careless car doors. I was amazed, really amazed at what I could sand and polish-out of the scrapes. Shallow scratches are expected to come out but these were deep gouge-type scrapes in the clear/paint. They are still there if your know where to look but you need excellent light and perfect eyesight to see them.
I was losing light when I quit and took these pictures, I'll add some better ones tomorrow. Still, you can see the reflectivity and clarity of the paint. it is starting to look like a proper mafia staff car.
Also gradually detailing the interior, though it wasn't as bad as the exterior to start with:
