Documentation Exploration

I found out through the 190SL Group forum that you can send away to Germany for a copy of the original build sheet for any Mercedes. All you need is the VIN number. So I sent our VIN to the Mercedes Benz Classic Center and the guy there sent it to Germany. A few days later I got a digital copy of the build sheet. There was a problem, though.

Everything is in German and the copy is quite faded and distorted. Remember that this piece of paper was almost 60 years old! Anyway, from what I could determine, this build sheet was for another car, not ours! It said that the car with this VIN number was a coupe, not a roadster, and that it was originally metallic gray with red upholstery. Ours should have been red paint with black upholstery. Definitely not our car. So I had to do more research.

wrong car!

It turns out there are three numbers associated with these cars. There is the chassis number, the body number and the engine number. Most of the time the chassis number became the VIN. On our car the body number was selected to be the VIN. I don't know why or how rare this is or if it is a problem. The car has been in our family since 1975. Probably not a problem.

Chassis number plate on firewall behind the battery

With 190SL's the whole "numbers matching" thing doesn't apply. With 190SL's the three numbers almost never matched, not even the very first cars. I read that. on the first two 190SL's made, the car with chassis number 5500001 had body number 5500002 and the chassis number 5500002 had body number 5500001. It really didn't matter to the guys at the manufacturing plant. Our car has a new engine in it so that number definitely will not match what was originally put in the car.

Body number plate on driver's side door jamb.

Our car's body number is 6502520 and the chassis number is 6503849. The first two digits depict the year it was made, in reverse. So the 65 means that it was made in 1956. The next five digits are the production number. In 1956 they built 4032 cars. Ours was number 3849 of that production year which would indicate it was made late in the year. The official production numbers from Mercedes aren't completely correct, though. Here's a link to a page that describes the production over the years and how Mercedes sort of fudged the numbers.

190SL's were hand built. Each body part has the body number on it, at least the last four digits of the body number. Only number-matched body parts fit together properly. On our car you can find the number 2520 stamped or written on the body parts. I even found it in chalk on the inside of the back of the driver's seat.

There is another chassis number plate mounted to the frame of the car. Above the plate, the same number is stamped into the frame below the voltage regulator. It is facing up so it can be really filthy with oil and dirt. I scrubbed ours off but you can barely make it out. Not an easy place to get to either. I couldn't read it at all just by looking at it. I had to use a flashlight and stuff my camera down there, take a picture, and blow it up in order to see that it is the same number as the plate behind the battery.

An unusual thing about 190SL's is the year the car was built is often not the year shown on the title. The cars were registered the year they were sold, not the year they were built. So our car is registered as a 1958 but it was built in 1956. I figure that it probably doesn't really matter as far as the legal stuff goes but it is important to know the year it was made to get the right parts.

When I registered it here in AZ, I didn't bother to try to change anything. I suspected that might turn into a bureaucratic nightmare. Still, it would be cool if, someday, I could get the title changed to show the year of manufacture and to have the chassis number be the VIN like most of the other cars out there. Or maybe it doesn't matter at all.

Now I have to bother the Classic Center again with a new number (the chassis number) and ask them to send to Germany for the build sheet that actually belongs to this car.

I will end this post with something much prettier than these dirty number plates and faded documents. I found a model of our car in a thrift store for $15. Cool, huh?