COMING VERY SOON: US 500E & E500 VIN database + analytics

[gerryvz]

I am very proud to announce that a project I have been promising this forum, for a full 20 YEARS, is now very close to completion, and will be rolled out to the broader forum on or before Christmas Day, 2025.

This long-awaited project is the VIN database of all US-delivered 500E and E500 models. While this data in and of itself is NOT NEW, and numerous members have this information, for the first time this information is now cross-referenced with individual threads here on the forum for the corresponding cars where they have come up for sale in the past.

And furthermore, and MOST IMPORTANTLY, we have now achieved a full breakdown and analysis of both interior and exterior color information, and combinations thereof, for every US car delivered. This now includes all of the 23 US-spec cars that were delivered via the European Delivery program.

Some of this data has been available in the Wiki, if you knew where and how to find it. But it will be presented in a much more usable and visually interesting fashion.

After initial unveiling of this database to everyone, the next stage will be to go through each of the 1,528 US entries, and note the status of each car based on the information we have. What I mean is that if a car has been confirmed WRECKED, TOTALLED, PARTED OUT, or has a known SALVAGE TITLE or accident damage, this will be noted in the VIN database in its own field. This will provide everyone at a glance, the status of every car if it is known.

Small incremental stage after this, will be to add the small number of Canadian delivery cars to the database, to provide a full picture of "North American" delivered cars.

All members will have the ability to make/leave comments to the database, and all comments will be reviewed and the database entry updated if the comments are confirmed. So, for example, if the database notes that a car has a salvage title, but someone knows the car (or owns the car) and the title was re-issued as a SALVAGE REBUILT title, then this can be notated by the owner/knowledgeable member, and forum admins will update the database accordingly.

Final note -- this rollout is ONLY for US cars at the current time. This is a major starting point, as more than 50% of the members and traffic to this site is from US members. As a NEXT PHASE, we will add all non-US VIN numbers to the database, and begin updating information as to colors, country of delivery, and so forth. Over time, this non-US data will grow as we have a LOT of "for sale" data on non-US cars as well.

Below are a couple of screen shots from the database, so that you can see what things look like.

Merry Christmas 500Eboard !!!
Cheers,
Gerry


Main data overview page (partial view):



Screen shot of database showing vehicle info + links to forum threads on individual cars:

 

[sheward]

VERY cool!

Looking forward to it.

 

[doolar]

The amount of love and dedication…

 

[gerryvz]

Some visual enhancements to the model-year database pages are now completed.

You can see, at a glance, next to the individual VIN numbers, the exterior and interior colors of each car.

Next up is the Pivot Table for the status of each car (WRECKED, SCRAPPED, REBUILT, PARTED, etc.) which will be coming over the weekend.



And yes, @gsxr, the 1994 cars' interior colors, as appropriate, are marked PARCHMENT instead of CREAM.
No nomenclature to be found anywhere in these database entries.....

Also, for the US cars, I used the US/MBNA name for the colors, although the "Rest of World" colors as identified in the EPC, are used in the Interior column further to the right.

So, for example, the exterior colors are marked "PEARL BLACK" for 199, while the interior column per MB, is marked "metallic blue-black." Same thing for "TEAL BLUE" and "beryl".......and so on.

 

[emerydc8]

This will be a great resource for those looking to buy a 500E. Thanks Gerry!

 

[gerryvz]

I am debating adding a column with links to the LASTVIN data card for each car. That will take some work to get the links made for each card, but will also be a valuable addition to each car's record, I think.

I haven't tallied things up, but I would say that this forum contains CARS FOR SALE threads on probably 40% of the US E500Es made. This DOES NOT include the cars that are owned by forum members, unless a member bought one that already had a FOR SALE thread.

I still have yet to integrate my own personal database with this one, too. That should add quite a few more cars, especially ones that came up for sale in the 500Ecstasy days.

In going through the forum's FOR SALE threads, I would say there are at least another 50 cars that have threads, but no VIN number was listed/identified in the thread when it was created for a specific car. This was especially true in the earlier days of the forum, until about 2011 or 2012, when people started getting more diligent and aggressive about capturing VIN numbers and posting them in each FOR SALE thread.

At the end of all this, we are going to have a decently complete record of one hell of a lot of the 1,528 cars that came to the US. (This DOES NOT include non-US cars imported here in recent years, just the original MBNA cars that were imported).

You can see in the image I posted above, that I have also added a "NOTES" column. This will be where my own personal database observations will go for each car, when I begin moving that data into this resource.

 

[gerryvz]

Progress continues on the new database resource.

From this screenshot, you can see that the notes from my personal database, for each car, are being integrated into each car. As I continue to work through the 1992 cars, I am SHOCKED at how large of a percentage of all the cars I have compiled, since I started my personal database in 2003 -- some 22.5 years ago! It has to be over half of the cars. Many of the cars I had compiled information on, have gone on to be sold (sometimes multiple times) here on this site, so this forum's FOR SALE threads pick up these later sales. However, my database provides a lot of early information, usually before this site was created in 2008.

I think when this project is all well and done, we are going to have history and detailed information on probably 2/3 of the cars brought into the US, and perhaps more. I will be able to compile the exact info once I am done integrating my own personal database notes with the VIN database.

This will be the first time in 23+ years, that my personal database notes will be seeing the light of day.

Sample 1992 screen shot, showing overview of entry for each car:



Sample screen shot showing my personal "drill-down" notes for documented cars:



Close-up of a sample of my personal "drill-down" notes for a particular car:

 

[Jlaa]

Progress continues on the new database resource.

From this screenshot, you can see that the notes from my personal database, for each car, are being integrated into each car. As I continue to work through the 1992 cars, I am SHOCKED at how large of a percentage of all the cars I have compiled, since I started my personal database in 2003 -- some 22.5 years ago! It has to be over half of the cars. Many of the cars I had compiled information on, have gone on to be sold (sometimes multiple times) here on this site, so this forum's FOR SALE threads pick up these later sales. However, my database provides a lot of early information, usually before this site was created in 2008.

I think when this project is all well and done, we are going to have history and detailed information on probably 2/3 of the cars brought into the US, and perhaps more. I will be able to compile the exact info once I am done integrating my own personal database notes with the VIN database.

This will be the first time in 23+ years, that my personal database notes will be seeing the light of day.

Sample 1992 screen shot, showing overview of entry for each car:
View attachment 229731


Sample screen shot showing my personal "drill-down" notes for documented cars:
View attachment 229730


Close-up of a sample of my personal "drill-down" notes for a particular car:
View attachment 229729

What a fantastic labor of love!

 

[gerryvz]

My private database details and notes are now integrated into the VIN database for Model Year 1992.

Out of 635 total entries (VINs) database, we have documented information -- between threads on this forum AND/OR individual entries in my database, of 389 cars total.

That's 61.3% of all 1992 cars that have been found, identified and documented over the years.

My database had specific entries for 273 Model Year 1992 cars.
This forum has specific FOR SALE entries for 116 ADDITIONAL Model Year 1992 cars not covered by my private database.

As I complete the integration with Model Years 1993 and 1994, it will be interesting to see what the statistics come out to be.

 

[emerydc8]

Any idea how many 500Es have been junked and recycled? If you have records of 2/3 of all imported cars and you take into account those that have been recycled I imagine you would have a very high percentage of the 1528 total.

 

[R129 UK]

And yes, @gsxr, the 1994 cars' interior colors, as appropriate, are marked PARCHMENT instead of CREAM.
No nomenclature to be found anywhere in these database entries.....

Would using the appropriate colour code placate Mr @gsxr?

 

[emerydc8]

 

[gerryvz]

Would using the appropriate colour code placate Mr @gsxr?

1992 & 1993 COLOR REFERENCE:


1994 COLOR REFERENCE:

 

[gerryvz]

Any idea how many 500Es have been junked and recycled? If you have records of 2/3 of all imported cars and you take into account those that have been recycled I imagine you would have a very high percentage of the 1528 total.

I am entering in all scrapped and salvage cars as I have them in the database. Over time I will have to comb the threads here to add to it.

There will be a lot that I am sure are scrapped/gone that we won't/don't know about, too. We have zero knowledge of one third of just the 1992 US cars, so it's likely that a notable number of them have probably been scrapped, but we will likely never know.

Status column (example) -- PivotTable not yet created:


I'm also entering low-mileage cars (<50K miles at the time I entered them in) as I have them in my database:



And also known celebrity-owned cars:

 

[gerryvz]

This VIN database is a major undertaking. I've been working 6-8 hours a day for the past 5 days, and still have quite a ways yet to go. All of the VINs are in, and the interior and exterior colors are all done, but there are a lot of improvements to be made. The integration with my personal database is very slow. I'm about 2/3 of the way through the 1993 model year now. Hopefully will have it done tonight.

Literally going through each car, note by note, pulling out relevant information to detail if it exists. You would think that 1,528 cars is a finite number, but it's a lot of vehicles to work through. And I haven't even started on the LastVIN data card URLs yet.

 

[gerryvz]

View attachment 229732

My private database details and notes are now integrated into the VIN database for Model Year 1992.

Out of 635 total entries (VINs) database, we have documented information -- between threads on this forum AND/OR individual entries in my database, of 389 cars total.

That's 61.3% of all 1992 cars that have been found, identified and documented over the years.

My database had specific entries for 273 Model Year 1992 cars.
This forum has specific FOR SALE entries for 116 ADDITIONAL Model Year 1992 cars not covered by my private database.

As I complete the integration with Model Years 1993 and 1994, it will be interesting to see what the statistics come out to be.

Just finished integrating my personal database for the 1993 cars.

I had a total of 211 Model Year 1993 cars in my database.
The forum had an additional 83 cars that I didn't have (as I haven't updated the database much in the past 5-6 years).

So, we have detailed records for 294 out of 500 Model Year 1993 cars, or 58.8% of the total US 1993 cars.

One interesting observation at the very end of the 1993 model year - they made a HUGE batch of Signal Red and Black on Black cars.

Check this out:

 

[Jlaa]

Just finished integrating my personal database for the 1993 cars.

I had a total of 211 Model Year 1993 cars in my database.
The forum had an additional 83 cars that I didn't have (as I haven't updated the database much in the past 5-6 years).

So, we have detailed records for 294 out of 500 Model Year 1993 cars, or 58.8% of the total US 1993 cars.

One interesting observation at the very end of the 1993 model year - they made a HUGE batch of Signal Red and Black on Black cars.

Check this out:
View attachment 229789

Whoa! That's almost all the signal red cars. You probably have mine up there earlier in the year right? 972328. Also, @Teddy_West here in the bay area has another signal red / creme car.

 

[gerryvz]

Whoa! That's almost all the signal red cars. You probably have mine up there earlier in the year right? 972328. Also, @Teddy_West here in the bay area has another signal red / creme car.

There were 17 Signal Red cars made, in total. All of them were 1993 models.
16 of them had a creme beige mushroom interior, and 1 of them had a black interior.

And yes, I have your car earlier in the 1993 series. It's marked in the notes. I don't have Teddy's marked. I had shared the history I had on your car from my personal database, some years back when you acquired it.

 

[gerryvz]

So, my database is also now integrated with the 1994 cars. I had personally 154 cars recorded, and the forum threads from recent years add another 65 1994 cars, coming to 219 cars recorded out of 393 imported for the 1994 model year. This is 55.7%.

So, adding everything together from the three US model years, we have a total of 902 cars documented or with detail, or 59% of the 1,528 cars officially imported into the US.

Remember that this 902 total DOES NOT include many members' cars -- some members are identified in my database notes, but the vast majority are NOT identified, because folks never put their VINs on here. This also does not include at least 50 "FOR SALE" threads here on the forum from over the years, with no VIN included in the listing.

Given this, it is likely that we would be somewhere around 1,100-1,200 cars total, if we had all of the records for everyone.

I will begin tallying known decommissioned/parted/scrapped cars, but honestly from the records that I have, the number is not super high.

A fair number of cars are documented as having salvage titles, but this DOES NOT mean they have been scrapped, necessarily. A fair number of salvage cars are actually repaired and rebuilt. So, the "SCRAPPED" cars that I have marked in the database, are KNOWN to be completely dismantled and/or parted out, and have zero chance of ever coming back. Honestly I believe this is a fairly low number.

A note for folks -- when the database goes live -- and it will be very very soon -- you will have the ability to "comment" on it. Meaning you can highlight a specific car/VIN/entry, and you can add a comment that will be seen by the admin(s). The admins can then choose to take your comment and add the info to the car's entry, or reject it, etc. If you want to mark a specific VIN as being your car, you are welcome to do this - it is completely up to you and you would need to do this via a comment.

If a particular car has been scrapped or parted, it would be VERY valuable commentary for you to add this, so we can keep things updated.

 

[WDB748372]

I am debating adding a column with links to the LASTVIN data card for each car. That will take some work to get the links made for each card, but will also be a valuable addition to each car's record, I think.

I did this for the list of 957-only cars when creating that thread. It took maybe 2 hours to manually input and save the link of 103 VINs and not that much later all that time proved to be quite a waste as Lastvin.com removed many links that would either display "ERROR: VIN decode lookup failed" or the datacard of another random Mercedes.

It would be cool to have a site built-in decoder but not sure what the constraints are to implementing that. I believe I have all the EPC datacards in txt form (can see how converting to PDF would come out). You can upload all datacards to the same Google account that would host the spreadsheet and simply reference the filename for each respective VIN. Upon clicking the link, it would open the file in a new tab as if you open any file from your Google Drive. Just based on this quick research I didn't see a way of automating to fill the cells for the filename so looks like you may need to manually type in the filenames but I can dig deeper into that.

Another option, what I did for my master spreadsheets on various 210 models is to incorporate the datacard into the spreadsheet. Some photos attached. I had a list of the option codes and let that be a cell. There would be no description but I ended up separating each option code into their own column and have the column name be the description so that I can filter different options and find a car. These spreadsheets are really long though with 150+ columns and thousands of rows/VINs.

 

[gerryvz]

I did this for the list of 957-only cars when creating that thread. It took maybe 2 hours to manually input and save the link of 103 VINs and not that much later all that time proved to be quite a waste as Lastvin.com removed many links that would either display "ERROR: VIN decode lookup failed" or the datacard of another random Mercedes.

It would be cool to have a site built-in decoder but not sure what the constraints are to implementing that. I believe I have all the EPC datacards in txt form (can see how converting to PDF would come out). You can upload all datacards to the same Google account that would host the spreadsheet and simply reference the filename for each respective VIN. Upon clicking the link, it would open the file in a new tab as if you open any file from your Google Drive. Just based on this quick research I didn't see a way of automating to fill the cells for the filename so looks like you may need to manually type in the filenames but I can dig deeper into that.

Another option, what I did for my master spreadsheets on various 210 models is to incorporate the datacard into the spreadsheet. Some photos attached. I had a list of the option codes and let that be a cell. There would be no description but I ended up separating each option code into their own column and have the column name be the description so that I can filter different options and find a car. These spreadsheets are really long though with 150+ columns and thousands of rows/VINs.

I can also download all LastVIN cards as PDFs and upload them to the 500Eboard server, and then link to them that way. That's easy enough and gives someone a hard copy to play with. I didn't know that the static LastVIN URLs do go stale. Good to know - I will adjust my strategy on this.

I don't think I want to present all of the data card data within the forum. It's much simpler and easier on members to grab a PDF with everything on it, and save it or print it out.

 

[gerryvz]

Now that I have my own stuff integrated, I think I'm going to push things live today. I will set up a special message that pops up the next time that folks log in, that gives the URL for the VIN database, and encourages folks to bookmark it. It's in the form of a Google spreadsheet.

I may convert it to a full-on SQL database in the future. It's easy enough to import an XLS or a CSV into a SQL database file.

 

[gerryvz]

The VIN database resource IS NOW LIVE !!

You can access it from the top of your screen using the "VIN DATABASE" button, or via the VIN Database sub-forum on the main screen.

If you have any comments, you have the ability to add comments to specific cells or entries, and the admins will be alerted. Any helpful information you can add to a specific car that you have knowledge of, would be very welcomed and will be added to the car's entry in the database.

Happy exploring everyone !!

 

[WDB748372]

The VIN database resource IS NOW LIVE !!

You can access it from the top of your screen using the "VIN DATABASE" button, or via the VIN Database sub-forum on the main screen.

If you have any comments, you have the ability to add comments to specific cells or entries, and the admins will be alerted. Any helpful information you can add to a specific car that you have knowledge of, would be very welcomed and will be added to the car's entry in the database.

Happy exploring everyone !!

I see you added "colors solved" as a note to some VINs which match what I had for their exterior/interior color. The unknown color combo from 1994 VIN WDBEA36E8RC031952 is 199/275. Not sure how I solved these but there it is.

 

[gerryvz]

We have begun adding the 85 officially imported CANADIAN models to the Model Year tabs.



The interior/exterior color combos on the Summary tab are completed and correct, providing a full picture of North American E500E imports (US+Canadian).

 

[puchak]

This is amazing, good work! As a future buyer, this will be super useful.

 

[gerryvz]

We have begun adding the 85 officially imported CANADIAN models to the Model Year tabs.
View attachment 229863


The interior/exterior color combos on the Summary tab are completed and correct, providing a full picture of North American E500E imports (US+Canadian).

Canadian VINs are all uploaded to the Model Year tabs, as well as being integrated into the Summary page. The data card hard-links for model years 1992 and 1993 CANADIAN cars are now live in the database, referencing LastVIN/DataMB data card PDFs stored on the 500Eboard main server.

We should have the 1994 model year CANADIAN data cards live a little bit later today.

Work continues..........
This has been a 100% solo effort to date, and I have logged more than 80 hours into it. There will be much more to go to make all of the US model 1,528 cars' data cards go live. I am hoping I can get this completed by the end of calendar year 2025. Just doing the 85 Canadian data cards has taken probably 4-5 hours......

I do want to thank @WDB748372 for the assist with confirming my Canadian VINs. He picked up 3-4 in the overall list that I didn't previously have.


Canadian Model Year 1994 VIN datacards are now loaded and linked from the VIN database.

 

[gerryvz]

Does anyone have any thoughts, ideas or suggestions for improving the VIN Database and analytics effort?

I'm all ears as to how to make it more useful for folks.

 

[ArauzMotoring]

I am just commenting to say thank you for putting in the love and work to document this!!

Also I believe the row with my cars vin may have a link to a different car on the link section- aside from the original for sale link first posted on this forum.. though I may be wrong..

WDBEA36EXPB916656

 

[Jlaa]

One thing I didn't realize until after using gsheet for a while is that column M can be scrolled ---- it must be scrolled up and down (not left to right) to see all the details / notes about someone's car!

 

[gerryvz]

I am just commenting to say thank you for putting in the love and work to document this!!

Also I believe the row with my cars vin may have a link to a different car on the link section- aside from the original for sale link first posted on this forum.. though I may be wrong..

WDBEA36EXPB916656

Please add a comment to the worksheet for the VIN in question. This will provide an official record of the input/comment, and it can then be resolved. This is what the commenting function is for -- for anyone to provide input.

Comments made in this thread will not be translated over to the sheet. It's too much work. Thanks.

Also, each car has THREE URL columns available, for those times when there are multiple threads covering a single car. This often happens when a car is listed FOR SALE, and then is bought by a forum member who then starts an OWNER thread about the car. This way, all relevant threads on the forum about any given car, can be maintained with that car's entry in the database.

Again, you can make a comment on any car's URL cell in its VIN row, and paste the URL for the OWNER or other thread into the comment.

Thanks.

 

[gerryvz]

One thing I didn't realize until after using gsheet for a while is that column M can be scrolled ---- it must be scrolled up and down (not left to right) to see all the details / notes about someone's car!

Yes, if you double-click on an entry in Column M, it will expand to show the entire comment, but you must scroll up and down if it has extensive notes.

And to clear up multiple notes I've received personally from people about their cars:

My "Notes" in Column M, are notes that were made up to 22-23 years ago. They are notes that were taken at a given point in time. Many if not most cars HAVE NOT had their notes updated in recent years, because this forum about 10 years ago started taking over this function as cars came up for sale, and threads began being created about individual cars with their VIN numbers in the first post.

No need for me to duplicate things in my private database, when whole threads and conversations (and punch lists, etc.) exist about individual cars.

So....if you don't see recent notes about your car, this is because I took notes about it back in the day, before this forum started tracking individual cars. You are welcome (and encouraged) to leave a comment about your car with whatever you would like to have added/notated about it.

If you don't want to make any comments about your car, for privacy reasons, that is 100% your choice. But PLEASE don't expect my personal database to have up-to-the-minute notes about your car, when I haven't really been updating the database for the past 10 years or so. The value of the database is more as a HISTORICAL record of cars from decades ago. Many folks here have OWNER threads, or FOR SALE threads exist on many cars, which provide more recent history, photos (detailed photos if a BaT or MBMarket car), and more.

Thanks.

 

[gerryvz]

All cars in the database now have live links to a LastVIN data card. HOWEVER, only Canadian cars from 1992-1994, and about the first 100 cars in the 1992 model year, have their linked data cards uploaded to the forum server, and thus actually resolve to a live data card.

More data cards will be gradually uploaded over time, but the links are static and will work just fine as the data cards are uploaded. It's a time-consuming job downloading each data card from LastVIN, and then uploading its PDF to the server.

 

[Otrebla49]

That's excellent news, Gerry!

about the first 100 cars in the 1992 model year, have their linked data cards uploaded to the forum server

I couldn't help and noticed at LastVIN (when I entered for another search there on Dec. 31..) that someone - my estimation was with high probability yourself - that 500E data cards were being 'pulled' down previously..

As seen on the attached pics, I automatically had to do 'what I usually do' when discovering unusual cars on the list shown there.. so I had to download these same data cards to my personal drive too (call it my OCD, if you wish so!)

Regards from snowy Stuttgart,
Alberto

 

[gerryvz]

Yes, I have been downloading the .036 PDFs in batches, 10-20 at a time, as I have time. It's tedious work, and often I wonder "for what" ..... as for why I went to the effort to even create this VIN database resource for folks here.

 

[gsxr]

Yes, I have been downloading the .036 PDFs in batches, 10-20 at a time, as I have time. It's tedious work...

Could this be automated with a 'bot and a little AI sprinkled on top?

 

[gerryvz]

I don't think so, because of the CAPCHA that LASTVIN uses after you access about 10-12 data cards. I wish it could.

I did recently make use of scripting and ChatGPT to create all of the individual URLs for each data card, and to enter them into the VIN Database. That saved many, many hours of work. ChatGPT worked a charm at creating all of those VIN URLs.

 

[gerryvz]

We have added a new tab in the VIN database that is dedicated to US-built and imported prototype AMG Hammer models.

The data for this tab is somewhat taken from the Curated "registry" of US AMG Hammers. We have provisioned more information based on the VIN database entry format, as well as data cards for those cars with known VIN numbers.

If you have any comments or updates to this list, please use the "Commenting" function in the Google Sheet to provide relevant information.

 

[gerryvz]

Tonight I made some significant enhancements to the "Summary" page of the VIN Database.

Specifically I broke out the Canadian cars' into a separate table that details them both by interior and exterior color combos, and tallys the cars. I also added a Canadian car-specific pie chart, to mirror the US-specific pie chart already created.

Lastly I changed the colors on the pie charts' slices, to roughly mirror the exterior colors of the cars imported to both the US and Canada.

Enjoy!

 

[gerryvz]

I will be adding a new tab to the database shortly, which will detail every VIN number for all 10,479 cars produced.

This will easily allow people globally to determine what number their car was in the the overall production order of 500E and E500 models.

In addition, it will serve as the basis for further expansion of the database to include non-North American cars.

 

[xfadmin]

I will be adding a new tab to the database shortly, which will detail every VIN number for all 10,479 cars produced.

This will easily allow people globally to determine what number their car was in the the overall production order of 500E and E500 models.

In addition, it will serve as the basis for further expansion of the database to include non-North American cars.

I see that you have done this. Nice work !

 

[xfadmin]

We have added a new tab in the VIN database that is dedicated to US-built and imported prototype AMG Hammer models.

The data for this tab is somewhat taken from the Curated "registry" of US AMG Hammers. We have provisioned more information based on the VIN database entry format, as well as data cards for those cars with known VIN numbers.

If you have any comments or updates to this list, please use the "Commenting" function in the Google Sheet to provide relevant information.

Significant updates and additions have been made to the Non-US-Built "AMG Hammers" section, using an old data source from the 2011 time frame.

 

[gerryvz]

We continue to make daily enhancements to the VIN Database resource. Sincere thanks to @WDB748372 for a small bit of assistance with a couple of missing VIN numbers in the global .036 database, an issue which is now solved.

Separately, some non-US members are now beginning to make notes on non-US cars' VIN numbers in the Production Order tab of the VIN resource. That is fine, and we will preserve any and all comments made on non-US cars. However, the initial rollout of this resources is ONLY for North American cars (as indicated by the Summary and Model Year tabs), and we are not yet tracking global cars.

That is (perhaps) a future phase of this project. Managing all 10,479 VINs and their associated data is just an immense amount of information for one person (me) to handle at this point in time, particularly balancing with my daily work responsibilities, and also the running of this forum.

If someone (or a few people) want to volunteer to build out the non-US cars, I would welcome the help and would be happy to discuss. The format would need to be EXACTLY consistent with the US data, and we would have to figure out appropriate break-points corresponding to model years ... perhaps using a production-date-based breakpoint, I don't know.

We would have to split this up so that perhaps one person could take on (and fully process) roughly 1,000 cars at a time. And then the next 1,000. It's a tedious task...not easy nor fun.

 

[gerryvz]

Significant updates and additions have been made to the Non-US-Built "AMG Hammers" section, using an old data source from the 2011 time frame.

I'm sure someone has compiled a more comprehensive list of AMG Hammers somewhere, but I've yet to see it online. I believe there were somewhere around 50 Hammers (sedans and coupes, plus one Hammer wagon) produced, between the US, Germany and perhaps Japan?

 

[WDB748372]

If someone (or a few people) want to volunteer to build out the non-US cars, I would welcome the help and would be happy to discuss. The format would need to be EXACTLY consistent with the US data, and we would have to figure out appropriate break-points corresponding to model years ... perhaps using a production-date-based breakpoint, I don't know.

We would have to split this up so that perhaps one person could take on (and fully process) roughly 1,000 cars at a time. And then the next 1,000. It's a tedious task...not easy nor fun.

What do you mean exactly by "build-out" and can you be more specific on what needs to be done? I can potentially volunteer but I think any repeated task is worth looking into automating and can certainly help with that.

I'm sure someone has compiled a more comprehensive list of AMG Hammers somewhere, but I've yet to see it online. I believe there were somewhere around 50 Hammers (sedans and coupes, plus one Hammer wagon) produced, between the US, Germany and perhaps Japan?

I had started a spreadsheet on this and found some info on decoding an AMG VIN (AMG124...) however Hammers are a bit too far fetched and I don't have a ton of info to begin with.

 

[gerryvz]

What do you mean exactly by "build-out" and can you be more specific on what needs to be done? I can potentially volunteer but I think any repeated task is worth looking into automating and can certainly help with that.


I had started a spreadsheet on this and found some info on decoding an AMG VIN (AMG124...) however Hammers are a bit too far fetched and I don't have a ton of info to begin with.

Basically we could take the "Production Order" tab as a basis, remove all of the North American VINs (starting with WDBEA36), and then build out all of the interior/exterior data, add a column for country delivered, and add a few columns for any URLs or notes on the 500Eboard or elsewhere referencing each car.


On the existing spreadsheet I have a lot of columns "hidden" for the US cars, specifically for the interior and exterior colors, delivery country, etc. as it is extraneous data.

Would love to automate it, and it's relatively easy to do automate things with Google Sheets. I would just need to get the data that is attached to each VIN, perhaps in this format:

 

[WDB748372]

I believe I already have most of what you're looking to do.


It would just be a matter of formatting stuff to your liking (adding color to cells, different paint names, adding interior names etc.)

 

[gerryvz]

If you'd like I can give you editor access if you want to import the info. Maybe start a new tab and cut and paste the whole sheet into it.

The non-US paint names are somewhat different from the US paint names, but the color and combos are the same, so that is easy to take care of after the fact.

 

[gerryvz]

I believe I already have most of what you're looking to do.
View attachment 231695

It would just be a matter of formatting stuff to your liking (adding color to cells, different paint names, adding interior names etc.)

OK, you now have full editor access. I created a new tab "Non-US 500E / E500" and you can use that tab to import the data. I am happy to format everything so it is more or less consistent with the US stuff.

I used your email that you have registered with the forum (gmail address).

 

[xfadmin]

It was very kind of @WDB748372 to add the VIN data into the new tab.

Using scripting automation, we have made some good progress in updating the non-North American cars in terms of interior and exterior colors. @gerryvz will be adding notes to various cars from his private database over time, and we will also add data cards for each car. The data card part is going to take a very long time, and will not be done until after the US cars are completed.