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Interesting US-Spec EARLY 500E - WDBEA36EXNB348745

gerryvz

Site Honcho
Staff member
I have been working on integrating all of the data sources to create the data table for the searchable PivotTable.

In the process of integrating all of this data, I came across a very interesting 500E, very very early, with a US VIN and US spec in the data card.

With VIN WDBEA36EXNB348745, it is MUCH earlier than what we would consider the first of the series-production US cars, which we would generally consider to be VIN WDBEA36E1NB475366.

Interestingly, this car was produced in SEPTEMBER, 1990, and was "released" in November, 1990. Yet, it is listed as a "Company Sales" car. But has code 491 (US spec) in the data card. The data card said it was delivered on January 15, 1991. For the "first" official 1992 model, per above VIN ending in 475366, the build date was 2-1991, release date 10-11-1991, delivery date 11-22-1991.

This car was the 38th car produced overall in the 10,479 series production.

So this "Company Sales" car was produced almost six months before the official first "US ordered" car was produced (which even then was built a full 9 months before delivery). Since it has a US VIN, it appears that it probably was some sort of car used by MBNA brass as a publicity vehicle, or one that was provided to magazines, for testing, etc.

Because it is listed as a "Company Sales" car, meaning it was delivered as a US spec car but in Germany, I am going to keep it in the "Non-US" category, rather than adding an additional car to the 1,528 ordered for US delivery.

Here's a link to the LastVIN data card for this early car, which is also attached:

 

Attachments

@SickFinga detailed other pre-production cars in addition to the one I noted above:

 

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