As I have not heard an answer to my private email to Cees, I thought I would warn people of something we just learned. I have no reason to disbelieve it, as it was told us by the Karlsruhe MBZ dealer (western Germany) in person.
I want a set of keys for my 280SL, which has the old 3-key system and only one set. We went to the dealership, where a nice man told us that we could still get keys, but we would need the datenblatt. (This is the brown card that came from the factory when your car was turned out for sale. It includes VIN, body nos., original colours, any factory options, and key codes. Seems to me it would be pretty vital to have, especially if you wanted to sell on and wished to prove originality of your bits and pieces.)
Well, my car came without a datenblatt (or rather, it came with someone else's Tobacco Brown and nonmatching VIN). I asked if I could order one, and the dealer kindly informed me that I better hurry, because Stuttgart was going to shut down its archive service at the end of the year, and after that there would be no datenblatt. And all that's available now is a copy, not the original.
Has anyone heard of this? Are there a lot of people without one? Is MBZ going to turn the archive over to MBZ Classic and proceed to rip off its old-model collectors?
When I get back to Sarasota, I'll post the VIN of the datenblatt I do have, and see if it belongs to anyone on this list or is from a long-gone car...
Trice
1968 280SL US, signal/bl leather, auto
