Rare JDM 1967 250SL

[YEOH250SL]

I am in the process of importing a 1967 Japanese Domestic Market 250SL RHD. It is really a rare to find a JDM W113. Have anyone seen one before?

[AndrewB]

Beautiful looking car

[Vander]

I have never seen a Japanese W113. Is the 600 also a JDM? Or what is the history on that?

[YEOH250SL]

The car is at a Mercedes specialist at Kobe named Silver Star Mercedes. The 600 is a customer's car. I was for 2 weeks and I can surely say that Japanese mechanics are very good, very meticulous.
If you're looking for  600, there's one for sale in Hong Kong restored by Kienle

[YEOH250SL]

And yes, the 600 is also JDM RHD

[Cees Klumper]

So, to be considered 'JDM', Mercedes would have to have constructed the cars specifically for the Japanese market, which I imagine means there would be a specific code for the datacard for that. In the technical manual, I see that indeed a code '837' denotes Japan, but that's hardly anything special as there are codes for almost every country on the planet (which would make my originally made for the US market a 'UDM' car? So the question really is, what specific modifications if any did Mercedes make for Japan for the Pagoda. Like for Italy, those little round blinkers on the front fenders, the US of course bumper overriders, emissions controls as from some point, different headlights. That sort of thing.

[BobH]

I'm slightly confused, i understood that a JDM vehicle was manufactured by a Japanese manufacturer for their home market, not an import?

[Pawel66]

Mine is GDM, for Germany.

Indeed, I looked trough all SAs, nothing specific for Japan. I saw specifics for e.g. Italy, France, Sweden, some countries grouped, but not Japan. I guess they could get away with applying existing SAs, not needing to create new ones. RHD + outside mirrors, perhaps something else.

[YEOH250SL]

All English and Australian RHD market cars have MP/H meters. Other than KM/H meter for a RHD, nothing special on specifications. but very few W113 were ordered specifically for the Japanese market during the 1960's. In addition, Japanese road do not use salt at all which make their cars fairly rust free. Most classic cars in Japan are very well kept in its original condition instead of rebuilds.

[YEOH250SL]

Is it the only RHD cars with OEM KM/H meter? Did any other RHD market cars come with KM/H meters?

[YEOH250SL]

Temperature is also in metric

[MikeSimon]

Is it the only RHD cars with OEM KM/H meter? Did any other RHD market cars come with KM/H meters?

When did Sweden change from driving on the left side of the road?

[DavidAPease]

September 3, 1967.  So I guess Swedish-sold 230SLs were likely RHD.  I'm sure they knew the change was coming, so probably by the 250SLs they were selling LHD.

           -David

[AndrewB]

South Africa also RHD with km/h speedo and degrees C for temperature

[JamesL]

Australia and NZ too, I'd imagine.

[Duncan200]

My 66 230 is Australian delivered and is in miles and Fahrenheit.

Although we changed to decimals with currency in 1966, it wasn’t until July 1974 that vehicles changed.

[Jack the Knife]

I've seen a few cars imported by Western. That was the higher end importing arm for Yanase Motors, who is still in business. A 600 sold on BaT some time ago that was also imported to Japan by them. There are some neat photos of Yanase/Western in the 50s/60s on the Japanese Automotive Dealer Hall of Fame website. On mobile otherwise I'd link. Yanase imported many nicely-specced Mercedes in preparation for the Olympics, believing some Japanese would buy owing to the auspiciousness of the times...