Country and dealer codes

[mdsalemi]

Somewhere buried in my papers, I know the following about my car.

1. Delivered new in April 1969 to a dealer in Manhasset (Long Island) New York.
2. In the autumn of 1969, it ended up on the used car lot at Drexel Motors, a Simca dealer in Drexel Hill, PA. There are still two companies in the Commonwealth of PA database with that name, listed as active, with creation dates of 1957 and 1959. Don't know but guessing one might be the former Simca dealer.
3. My uncle bought the car in fall 1969 for $4995 from the Simca dealer, transacted by snail mail, and flew down to Philadelphia and my aunt and uncle drove it home.

I don't know what information the "interim owner" from April through November of 1969 would be able to offer, even if he/she were alive...

Curiously the car spent the years in my uncle's stewardship close to the original dealer, but far from the selling used car lot.

[rbouch8828]

Hello Michael,

According to my Mercedes Dealer Book of January 15, 1968 the were dealers in the following Long Island towns:
Bayside, Brooklyn, Glenn Cove, Southampton.

It occurs to me that if enough members know the original dealer or city of purchase for their cars, we might be able to reconstruct the Rosetta Stone for the DataCard Dealer Numbers by making a spreadsheet where we put the known Dealer info and Data Card numbers together, gradually filling in the missing info as we get it.

I have all of the Dealers as of January 15th 1969, so those could be entered too.

Best,
RB

[mclewis]

My Auftrags-Nr. is 77144494.  The dealer was Auto Engineering, Inc., 436 Marrett Road, Lexington, Massachusetts.

I don’t know how to decipher the Auftrags-Nr., other than (I think) the first 7 means the cars was ordered in 1967 and the next 3 numbers, 714, means sent to the US.  The car was purchased on May 4, 1968.  The original owner traded in a 1965 Chevrolet Covair for a $900 credit!

[rbouch8828]

That is all great info. My book also shows Auto Engineering, Inc. on 436 Marrett Road, Lexington, MA 01273. So, I guess the dealer number for Auto Engineering was 4494.

Best,
RB

[rbouch8828]

Manhasset is halfway between Bayside and Glencove. Both those towns have dealers as of my 1968 Dealer Guide.

Best,
RB

[MikeSimon]

So many of us have tried (unsuccessfully) to trace our cars lineage. 

I was lucky to have the help of the Germany owner (not the original purchaser) try to assist going to  the "DMV" (or whatever it's called in Germany) without success. 



jb

Lucky me! I bought my 280 in 1982 from the 2nd owner and the original German title - which I still have - lists ALL the previous owners including the person who bought it new. I am surprised that the "germany owner" you referred to did not have a copy of the title. These documents have six possible entries and stayed with the car, with the current owner being listed in one of the six fields. I think ithe vehicle is being sold again, owner No 7 would get a new title.

[DavidAPease]

According to our Technical Manual, the last four digits of the Auftrags Nr. are "sequential by dealer/region/country and year."  In other words, these do not appear to be a dealer number or identification.  I think that the only information you can get from the Auftrags Nr. is the order year and "the region (if in Germany) or the country from which the order was placed".

           -David

[rbouch8828]

In the example above the Auftrags-Nr. is 77144494. According to the post the 7 meant the car was produced in 1967 and the 714 meant that it was shipped to the US. So the remaining numbers should be the dealer, right? 4494

[alpina]

No. the last four digits are simply a sequential number, changing with each order.
It does not make any sense that these 4 digits would be a dealer number. Think about it, that would mean all the cars
Ordered from a particular dealer in the same year would all have the same order number…

[rbouch8828]

Then I am confused by your first message. It says "According to our Technical Manual, the last four digits of the Auftrags Nr. are "sequential by dealer/region/country and year."". If it is sequential by "dealer" where is the "dealer" in this if as has been pointed out it does call out the country and year?

[DavidAPease]

I interpret that phrase to mean that orders placed by a given dealer/region/country in a given year are assigned a sequential number.  So in your example, your car's order would have been the 4,494th order (from the US?) in 1967.

[MikeSimon]

So, in my data card, in the Auftrags-Nr field it shows 217-  which according to the list in the Tech manual is "Niederlassung Frankfurt". Which is what all the other documents say as the selling dealership. It looks like this only applies to cars sold in Germany?

[49er]

I interpret that phrase to mean that orders placed by a given dealer/region/country in a given year are assigned a sequential number.  So in your example, your car's order would have been the 4,494th order (from the US?) in 1967.

  My car was ordered on May 12, 1968 and delivered September 18, 1968 with a build date sometime in July. My Auftrags-Nr is 87055771. Hard to tell when the car's order was actually entered into the system at the factory and assigned that number. When I placed my order, the original estimated delivery date was July.

John

[MikeSimon]

We have this topic now in different threads. Another one is in "General Discussion". Maybe someone can consolidate the two.

[John Betsch - "SADIE"]

I am extremely interested in any information or member experience in researching the ownership genealogy of their car- specifically euro models/Germany ownership/delivery.

"As Mike Simon wrote: lucky me! I bought my 280 in 1982 from the 2nd owner and the original German title - which I still have - lists ALL the previous owners including the person who bought it new. I am surprised that the "germany owner" you referred to did not have a copy of the title. These documents have six possible entries and stayed with the car, with the current owner being listed in one of the six fields. I think the vehicle is being sold again, owner No 7 would get a new title."

  I would love to hear some experiences that people have in their research- maybe leading to some clues to help other members in their research.

JB

[neelyrc]

According to our Technical Manual, the last four digits of the Auftrags Nr. are "sequential by dealer/region/country and year."  In other words, these do not appear to be a dealer number or identification.  I think that the only information you can get from the Auftrags Nr. is the order year and "the region (if in Germany) or the country from which the order was placed".

           -David

I think you are correct David.  As indicated in my post #7 above, I had assumed these last four digits were the dealer code but this is clearly not the case.  All formal communications concerning my car purchase in 1968 came from MBNA not the dealer.  In this correspondence they refer to my car by the last 5 digits of the Auftrags-Nr.(#7-4276).  See two letters from MNA attached.

I now believe that the last four sequential digits of the Auftrags-Nr. were assigned by MBUSA when they confirmed the order. Presumably for earlier cars in the Studebaker era they were supplied by Studebaker to the dealer.  I first saw the Auftrags-Nr. on my order confirmation from MBNA, not on any dealer paperwork. See attached order confirmation.

The copy is not very good but you can also see in the upper right hand corner a box labelled "Tourist Order No".  The number 31 has been inserted by MBNA.  I may be wrong but I would be very surprised if there were 31 tourist orders in 1968 from my Birmingham dealer.  This may be a regional number or a national number.

According to the list provided by WRE, in Post #3 above the Mercedes Benz of Birmingham dealer number is  01127. The name of the dealer in Birmingham in 1969 was The Star Automobile, Inc.  This company no longer exists. They were superseded by Crown Automobile Co.and later became Mercedes Benz of Birmingham, the dealer now in business here. I believe WRE's list might be much later than the period of our cars.   
       

[bilede]

I am a little late on this thread but for reference I will add to it anyway.  As stated later in this post, the last 4 numbers on the top right of the data card are not the dealer number in my experience and probably just a sequential order number.

As for dealerships in Arizona in the 60's dealer numbers, Bill Edel Motors was dealer number 3704.  The number is stamped on some of the warranty plates I have seen but I have not seen it on the data card.

Thanks, Bill Edel.