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Newsletter No.073 History lesson part 2, MB club rally

Please note that some of the links in this Newsletter may no longer be active as we update this site regularly

Newsletter Number 73
12th April 2004

Welcome.  This newsletter we have some sad news. After six years of loyal service, Bob Edwards, our Spares Manager, is leaving us this week to take up a career in a different industry.  I know that all of you who have had contact with him will wish him all the best for his future.  To date we have not filled his position, so if any of you have aspirations to work in Spare parts, or know somebody who does, please let me know.

I am going to Tasmania for two weeks, so Chris Righton, our Service manager, and Scott Johnston (one of our technicians) will be filling in for the Spares manager in my absence.  This may cause some minor delays in answering e-mailed spares requests so if you have an urgent requirement please use the toll free number 1300 787 300.

Whilst mentioning the toll free number I need to point out that this number can not be dialled from a mobile phone or a public phone. When you dial the 1300 number you are charged for a local call and we are charged for the balance of the STD charges. If you need to ring us from a mobile or public phone you need to ring the normal land line on 02 6239 1099

Also in this Newsletter is an extension of last Newsletters interesting history lesson, another "What the?" and the usual line up of jokes and interesting cars.

 Thanks John Green.

What the?

Only four replies to last newsletters "What the" and only two correct answers. These were:

Howard Fulford

Peter Brdar

The car is a W187 Type 220 sedan. It is definately a sedan, as you can clearly see the B pillar. One of the incorrect answers was that it was a W186, however the height of the mudguard is not high enough for this model. This  is the chassis number for a 300 sedan. Check out these links to see some pictures of an original sales brochure for both the Type 220 and Type 300

          Type 220                        Type 300

The "what the' for this newsletter is to name the model (not chassis type) of the car in Joke of the week.

 

Mercedes-Benz Club Rally

Back in newsletter number 60 we had the info for the Bi-annual Mercedes-Benz clubs of Australia rally that is to be held in Brisbane from the 9th to the 12th of this month. Well, after two years of organization the time has come for the Queensland club to host their rally. To those of you that are going I hope you all have a great time. This will be the first rally I have missed for 18 years as I am heading in the opposite direction  to Tasmania.  If any of the Newsletter readers are going I would love some digital pics and a bit of a story to put in the next newsletter.

For those Newsletter readers that live around Brisbane but are not attending there will be a display day at Southbank 9:00am to 1:00pm next Monday (12th). Cars are displayed and judged according to decade.

 

History lesson.

I received a few interesting e-mails following the pictures of the 130H in the last Newsletter.  Here are two of them:

-

Hi John
Reading the latest issue of the newsletter (No 72), I noticed the letter/article from the reader regarding the 130H.  The pictures shown certainly look like the 130H, and probably are. Not sure if you are aware, but there are (or were) at least two of these cars in Australia.
The first belonged to MBCV member ########  and was fully restored in the late '70s or early '80s.  It was quite a good restoration and attracted quite a bit of interest from members and others alike.  ####  passed away several years later, and the car was disposed of.
I am not really sure what happened to the car, but I believe it may have gone to Sydney, as I seem to recall that the owner of another 130H came from Sydney and was interested in having ####'s car as a pair to his.
 
If you are interested I can dig out details of the 130H from early Vic magazines, although I'm sure your Dad would recall ####'s car and have other details of it.

 

just a little trivia. the 130H model in your newsletter has nice original digit plates  these stopped in 1937  - you could hang on to them but most didn't as they were told by mail to hand in the plates for the new two letter three number combination today known as your  initial plates  eg. MK-OOO.  also if you transferred ownership of the car you had to hand them in .  you couldn't request your initials until 1971 but those in the know often got them from the department with a bribe.
The six digit plates like in the photo stopped at 274-000 in 1937.  the front plate is light metal with press through light metal numbers  which was introduced to satisfy the new rule of needing two plates.  initially you only had one plate which would now be on the back of the car and made of heavy enamel   ( some having 'front of car only on them' I could go on for hours but ill stop

I will see if I can get our Number plate expert to give us some more details and see if I can chase down the location of the "other" 130H.

 

Joke of the week.

 I was sent an e-mail the other day by one of our suppliers titled "Why Men die before Women!" It contained various shots of men "checking out" women and injuring them selves as a result of not watching that they were doing. Here is one of the shots.

Links of the week.

Here is a link to a great site based in Germany  the runs classifieds for Classic cars. They also do a monthly newsletter and recently had a great artical on the 190SL.

Back in Newsletter No.59  I wrote about the Fox Collection, Here is a link to there website.


Cars for Sale.

The 280SE 3.5 has been sold and is now with a new loving owner. 

The price on the 1997 C180 has been reduced to $24500.00. 

Click here to see all the cars for sale.

The following cars have recently arrived for sale:

380SL 1981 roadster 140000kms

The following cars have been sold:

280SE 3.5 sedan 1972 model 

Also in stock we have:

320E 1993 model 159000kms

C200 1996 model 176000kms

C180 1997model 103000kms

Collection of three factory Stretch Mercedes-Benz's


So that's it for another newsletter. Hope you liked what you saw.  If you have any ideas or want to contribute any articles, pictures or other material please e-mail me here.  Also, don't forget that you can check out the old newsletters here

Thanks, John Green.