Judging Questions: A View form Judges Will Help

[Pawel66]

We thought it might ne a good idea to ask our fellow members who are judges of our cars - this would be a first hand opinion that may shed some light on outstanding questions regarding stickers.

Perhaps I should add: if a search button had an overlaod fuse, this fuse would be blown many times when I was looking at this...

What I am not sure about:
1. The axle oil change reminder sticker in question in this post. I think generally this forum thinks it is a dealer thing. The most likely place is A-pillar, between hinges (a couple of other places mentioned too). The open question was: is it the US specific item, or they placed it in Europe too?

2. The oil level sticker in question in this post. I saw two schools on the forum:
- one schools opted for this to be a dealer thing (seen tyre pressure sticker in center and off center - hard to judge from its location if the space was left for oil level sticker or not)
- the other schools opts for this to be the US specific (lots of pictures of Euro original cars without this sticker)
- there may a mix of these schools - a US dealer thing

I am not sure what to think.

3. The trunk back wall sticker colour and location. Left of latch or right of latch? If left then close to latch before the light switch and further when light switch was applied? When did the colour change from red to purple?

I am not sure what to think here.

4. Was there or there was not any sticker on 280SL valve cover in Europe? A yellow one probably on early cars. What about late cars?

5. Where (if at all) was the valve clearances/spark gaps sticker applied on Euro cars? And US cars - valve cover as well?

The above come to my mind as uncertain points. Maybe I missed something.

[Jonny B]

I will be quite interested to read about the Euro vs. US vs. Rest of world comments on stickers.

One of the bigger changes will be in relation to the US emission regulations (re the valve cover stickers, and other emission control devices on the US cars).

I believe there is a reasonable amount of variability on the locations of stickers, i.e., the trunk air pressure label. There was most likely not any type of centering device for the sticker, they just knew they needed to go in this general location. A friend of mine here in SoCal like to argue about these small little details. One of my favorite discussion points with him is the snowflake decal in the windshield. I have seen it by the driver side and also by the passenger side....

One point of note/curiosity - if you take a close look at the oil level sticker, the part number is printed on the sticker. It begins with "114" which usually indicates the body type. The 114 cars were produced beginning in 1968. If that body number item is accurate, the sticker would not be on a 230 SL and probably only a very late 250 SL (if any)....??

Authentic Classics gives some guideline on the sticker changes for the trunk latch placed one (purple, blue, red) and also for the valve cover sticker (most likely in the US).

I have always thought the rear axle sticker to be placed on the A pillar between the hinges. But did not consider if it was factory or dealer installed. While judging (I judge for Mercedes Benz Club of America) at Legends of the Autobahn in Monterey, I saw one 111 car with the axle sticker on the differential?!

[Pawel66]

Jonny, thank you!

These are very valuable clues, actually!

Emissions controls - clear.

The snowflake - it appeared on the forum sometime somewhere - that it can be on either side of the windshield.

Point on oil level sticker - grear clue!

I will search on Authentic Classic pages.

Thank you!

[Shvegel]

I have a theory about the snowflake decal.  Since the Pagoda assembly line was split into two lines and the production workers were between the lines I think the left row cars got the sticker on the right side and the right hand cars got the sticker on the left.  Now we only need to determine which line our cars were born on to determine the proper side to affix the sticker.

[Pawel66]

I bet you it may boil down to something like this! For the future generations to figure it out after lots of arquing over lots of beers! 

[Jonny B]

Shvegel,

I LOVE the explanation on the sticker! I can't wait to test that out on my friend here in SoCal.

FYI - You have probably seen his car a number of times on magazine covers a couple of years back. He is the original owner, 1967 250 SL (late) Signal red with black vinyl. It is an amazing restoration, and it should be for the amount of money spent. I think it is for sale - somewhere north of $270,000 USD!!

[Shvegel]

Yikes.  I don't think John Lennon's car ever sold that high although John Lennon isn't exactly Steve Mcqueen. 

My next fussy persuit is the bottom of my car.  After researching colors and textures and finally getting the undercoating and green primer the way I wanted it my painter painted the whole thing blue.  Oh well.