JonathanSierakowski

I believe it was a mere 865 miles...

Walt here is something just for you, following some comments you shared about American cars being advertised in foreign lands... from a British newspaper in 1936

Hi Walt, I spotted this some days ago and having been remiss in commenting... the photo became hard to find because the thread has advanced literally dozens of pages since. Kudos! My small contribution: the 33/180 term was most commonly used for this model in the U.K. to indicate taxable and rated horsepower. In the States we'd simply call it a 630K and in Germany it was the 24/110/160 or Typ 630. There were two versions of the 630 before it gave way to the 680 Typ S but to delve deeper into that I'd have to post on alsancle's prewar Mercedes thread. It is worth nothing that this particular car survives and spent quite a long time in the United States! Best, Jonathan

This is a Saoutchik 'La Baule' body. Several of these were made on Mercedes 630K chassis, one on a R-R Phantom I and probably others. I think the car you are referring to at Blackhawk was a Murphy Clear Vision Covt Sedan?

Two different cars.

Hi Marty! Yes I have been fortunate to have many visits to the Detroit Public Library and this particular visit was the first after they opened after two years closure so there was a lot of need to dig for photos on behalf of a number of customers and thanks to new technology it is possible to make a lot of this material more widely available. I am grateful for all the many years of educational opportunities that preceded it but yes hanging out my own shingle has proven to be a great career decision and the future remains bright. Hope you are well and that we get to visit once life returns to normal! Jonathan

Skoch you have me there, so I'll say with the exception of the 540K Lang Tourenwagen, I haven't seen it on any 500/540 car.

Exactly! Never seen that bumper on a 500/540 car except the Tourenwagen we are discussing.

Hi Skoch, I am certain it is the same car; far as I know all of the 500K Tourenwagens had the standard 500K-style bumpers. The bumper on this car is of the same type used on early W07 770Ks. I cannot say if it left the factory this way, but it is the only one with this bumper which was on it in the photo you posted, on the car when it came to the United States along with the metal spare tire cover. Cheers, Jonathan

Nice to hear from you, Marty!

AJ this Tourenwagen passed from the Germans to the Russians and then to the motor pool mechanic that maintained it through both regimes. Then it was purchased by the U.S. solider that brought it to the States. I suspect a lot of cars (and other objects) had multiple temporary owners before ultimately going one way or another, and it worked both ways. Territory first occupied by the Russians was ceded to the Allies who eventually took things West, and vice versa cars from areas first occupied by U.S. troops then ceded to Russians ultimately ended up going East.

Hi all, Isottas have been an area of research interest, largely due to the fact that they were clothed with some extremely beautiful and ornate coachbuilt bodies yet there wasn't any centralized source of individual car histories that I could find when writing about one of the cars some years ago. The Nethercutt car has been in the collection since the 60s and is different from the brown/tan Landaulet Imperiale that was in the IP collection. GregLaR, it is true that the car in the Turin museum is "THE" actual factual Sunset Boulevard car, used in the movie in 1950 while under the ownership of Pacific Auto Rentals. PAR owned a number of IFs so swapping wheels, stone guards, and headlights was not as difficult as it would be today, and of course cars were painted multiple times in PAR ownership to change the appearance as needed for a new film. And to motoringicons' point, PAR sold a number of cars throughout the 50s/60s as rental demand for prewar cars waned, so the auction inventory was not nearly as substantial as what was in the rental inventory back in its heyday. Cheers, Jonathan

Dav I called you on the car so you had as fair a shot as anyone else