Country codes.... Iceland..?

[totopt]

Goodmorning everyone,
first of all let me introduce myself, in this forum I am an intruder because I am not the owner of a W113. I own a 190 SL which, being the "mother" of the W113, shares some aspects of it. I have drawn from this forum a lot of interesting information and for this I am very grateful to you. I purchased my 190 SL in the USA and completely restored it. I would like to take advantage of your knowledge to ask a question about the "Dealer and coutry code".
The code 05410056 is shown on my Daten card. From the list published in the Technical Manual it appears to have been sold in Iceland. I spoke briefly with an MB enthusiast who lives in Iceland who told me that no 190 SL was ever bought new in Iceland. My question is this: to some it appears that the 541 is the code of some other nation (excluding Iceland ..).
Thank you for your attention and I congratulate you on the completeness of the forum information.

Francesco Tonini - Florence (Italy)

[Pawel66]

Hi!

There are a lot of Members on this forum who are indeed very knowledgeable about Daimler records, codes, manufacturing statistics etc., who will, I am sure, provide possible interpretations of the Order No. you have on datacard.

I looked just briefly - indeed on 190SL forum there is no dealer list codes. By some mentiones in the posts you see that some of the dealer codes match those of W113 we have here (you have a fairly late car (1961), so this may be possible). But I am not sure if there were no alterations between 1961 and 1963 dealer codes (end of 190SL and start of 230SL) to nail if 541 is for 190SL Iceland, as it is for W113.

Could it be a demo car? Cancelled order? Was it a favourable tax/duty arrangement - you ordered in Iceland, but took it somehwere else to avoid duty being paid - we know such cases in some territories.

Also: what I have learned about classic Mercedes is that when you say "never" or "always" you need to really be sure of that...

By the way: I have just come back from my friend's who have a house near Castellina in Chianti. I envy you - no matter where you move from your place, within a couple of hours you bump into a motoring history at its best - from Pontedera to Maranello...

[MikeSimon]

Nice Pawel! We love Tuscany. Go there quite often. Our favorite winery is in Castellini in Chianti: Rocca della Maciè. We have been drinking their Chianti Classicos for over 35 years now!
They also make a Grappa di Rubizzo, which is out of this world!

[114015]

Francesco,

For me it looks as if your country code is still Iceland. Can't see any reason currently why it should be anything else.
Independent from what your 'MB enthusiast' may have said.
Was he around when these cars were sold to Iceland? 

On the other hand, your order number 04510056 tells us:
- ordered in 0 = 1960 - whould suit your expected built year and stamped date on the datacard well
- 451 - Iceland..., we mentioned that,
- 0056 - running order number of that year.
Makes sense to me to - that there probably weren't too many orders from Iceland for Mercedes passenger cars anyway ....


Just my 2 cents ...


Achim

(datacardknowledgecollector)

[totopt]

Hello and thank you all for your comments.
My doubt comes from the fact that the instruments are not in the metric system (m / ° C / kg / cm2) but in the imperial system (mile / ° F) as I would expect for the Icelandic market.
Regards
Francesco

[Pawel66]

I think it is not uncommon that the instruments might have been replaced later if the car was taken to the US for instance.

A lot of cars were ordered in Europe by e.g. the US military personnel who then could take them, I believe, duty free, back to the US. Diplomats, expats - all of them could do that (not necessariloy duty free, but they could do the order, export and instrument swap).