"D" badge or "D" schild

[lexon]

Hello!
I would like to install "D" badge on the back of my 280SL. As I know, it was an option for all Pagodas (the price was 3 DM:)).
So the question is: what kind of this badge was originaly on the back and where exactly it was installed by dealer or at the factory?

[MikeSimon]

The original sales brochure that came with my car's documents (late 1970) shows a picture of a 280SL with the D sign on the right corner of the rear trunk lid.
This, of course, is a decal type sign, vinyl self-adhesive, I have a hard time believing they would sell a metal sign for 3 DM. There are some that are metal and they have a plexi cover. Don't know if they were OE.

[kampala]

This 230 shows it hanging below rear license plate. 



http://oudemercedesbrochures.nl/W113_Vorstellung_AllerWelt63.html

This brochure site is run by a member of this forum. 

[Pawel66]

I have recently been trying to find the place for our badge in the rear with euro plate - not easy...

For metal D plate - this hanging one is one of the few locations...

[Shvegel]

The car from the brochure is a show car.  Notice the “show detailed” engine and lack of firewall pad.  It would be more reliable to have a production picture.  I imagine if that car left Mercedes’s hand and someone found it today.  “This thing is a mess.  Someone painted the valve cover and it’s all wrong under the hood.”

[Mike Hughes]

Rather than a brochure, I think that this was the Geneva Auto Show reveal article in the magazine that D-B sent to all Mercedes owners back in the day.  One white car was parked outside on the terrace, while another white car was the press reveal car inside the Restaurant du Parc des Eaux-Vives the morning prior to the opening of show.  One or both of them may have subsequently been was pressed into service as press demonstration cars, getting a good workout on road and track during the show.  One can also see the a silver one in the background in one of the exterior shots.  Someone correct me if I am wrong, but I think the red one on the show hall floor was the Pagoda that shortly afterwards went back to the factory and was massaged into the rally car that Eugen Böhringer took on his epic run in the Spa-Sofia-Liège rally just a few months later.  In any case just about every one of these very, very early cars differ from what we now accept as standard production units while the factory made spec modifications and adjustments to the production process.  While they bear the earliest production serial numbers, they are essentially pre-production prototypes.

[mbzse]

.../...more reliable to have a production picture../...

Example of "D" sign at rear center. This is per the factory mounting instruction, with two sheet metal screws into lower rear valance. As an alternative, factory instructions name it to be in the form of a "D" sticker on right side of trunk lid

[MikeSimon]

I wouldn't doubt, that the factory option "D" sign changed its type and location from early 230SL to late 280SL.
Again, if it was a 3DM option it was a cheap a... thing that Untertürkheim slapped on.

[MikeSimon]

I found several photos in my records of contemporary 230SL test reports. They had the D sign mounted in the center below the license plate. the sign has two bolts as shown in the second picture of the OP. The same is true for a 1967 250SL

[Tx246]

If, as a factory optioned Item, what is the correct style for the “D”?

[MikeSimon]

If, as a factory optioned Item, what is the correct style for the “D”?

What is your exact question? Is it about the shape of the "D"?

[rwmastel]

Font??

[Peter van Es]

International vehicle codes

and

Fonts on licence plates, specifically the German Din 1451 font.

[Tx246]

I guess my rap question is how do I find a plate similar (repro would be fine) to what would have come with the car seeing as it was a factory option.

I find it irrelevant and interesting at the same time.

[georgem]

Funny.............I thought that European cars had to display a sign such as the "D" to indicate their country of registration ie several years back I bought a XK150 Jaguar that was imported second hand from England. It had chrome "GB" (Great Britain) letters in chrome screwed to the boot (trunk) . I very much doubt that they were a MB factory fitted option..

So....any exported cars- most of ours -  would not have had any letters at all. I would imagine if the car was sold in a European country the dealer or owner would attach them. -

[Peter van Es]

I guess my rap question is how do I find a plate similar (repro would be fine) to what would have come with the car seeing as it was a factory option.

I find it irrelevant and interesting at the same time.

Technoclassica in Essen is your best bet. Find a member who goes there to buy one for you and ship it...

Or general sites like this one: https://oldtimer-ersatzteile24.de/D-Schild-aus-Alu but currently out of stock.

[rwmastel]

Funny.............I thought that European cars had to display a sign such as the "D" to indicate their country of registration ie several years back I bought a XK150 Jaguar that was imported second hand from England. It had chrome "GB" (Great Britain) letters in chrome screwed to the boot (trunk) . I very much doubt that they were a MB factory fitted option..

So....any exported cars- most of ours -  would not have had any letters at all. I would imagine if the car was sold in a European country the dealer or owner would attach them. -

By that logic, all the Euro delivered cars would have screw holes from these badges.  Or, do I misunderstand your point?

[georgem]

My point is that no cars would have holes - only when they were getting ready for delivery to the owner by the dealer would the "D" or "GB or whatever country where it is being sold would a plate or sticker  be attached - after the new owner requested it

[rwmastel]

My point is that no cars would have holes - only when they were getting ready for delivery to the owner by the dealer would the "D" or "GB or whatever country where it is being sold would a plate or sticker  be attached - after the new owner requested it

Oh!  You mean no cars would have holes when they left the factory.  OK.  I can buy that.

[John Betsch - "SADIE"]

Could anyone help with the approximate sizing of the metal D badge (have an idea to try) while I search for one to purchase

JB

[dirkbalter]

Could anyone help with the approximate sizing of the metal D badge (have an idea to try) while I search for one to purchase

JB

Approx.    175 x 115mm

[John Betsch - "SADIE"]

Thank you Dirk for the prompt response; and if anyone knows a US supplier of metal D badges, that would also be terrific

JB

[zoegrlh]

Look on eBay, can find anything there. Also I lived in Germany during the 80s, when you  purchase your car, and get it registered with the German state you are in, it’s up to you to go to a auto store and purchase the “D”, it can be a stick-on decal, or a magnetic metal one, and also the screw-on type. Also several different sizes. I even think, as I recall, they were not mandatory. I think it was a pride thing. I know the Netherlands was NH, Germany D, England GB, France F, Spain E, Poland POL, etc. I would look for the magnetic one, case you don’t want holes in your rear boot lid.

[MikeSimon]

Few corrections: Netherlands was/is NL, Poland PL.
As far as mandatory equipment was concerned back in the day: Only when you crossed the border into another country did you need a country sign. Today, the nation sign is incorporated in the license plate in a blue field on the left side.

[Cees Klumper]

Mikesimon is correct, you only had to put a sign on when you crossed the border. Many cars in the old days never did. From what I recall of the later seventies when I started driving, nobody used screw-on metal plates, everything was sticker by that time.

This is my original country sticker: