There are many anecdotes about the production of the 140 on the market, the most common questions are about the last production – they are usually discussions about monetary value, since collectors consider the last production version to be the most valuable. A more interesting topic than the number and rarity of the final products is, who’s the last one?
The Museum car
On September 1, 1998, a small farewell ceremony took place during the lunch break at Sindelfingen Halle 46: GOOD BYE Baureihe 140, an event that marked the end of 140 production. Plant manager Dr. Hans-Joachim Schöpf sent keys of two copies for museum preservation to Max-Gerrit von Pein, Head of Classic Cars at Mercedes-Benz. These two cars have since been featured in numerous events at the Mercedes-Benz Museum. According to later photos, they are 1998 S 320 (L) and 1998 CL 500, VIN is A432120 and A432046 respectively, let’s take a closer look at these two.
The S 320 (L) is in 744 Brilliant Silver with 261A leather Black. There is little that is special about it, but it has appeared in museum publications and exhibitions several times as a representative icon (and arguably the only one) of the 140. Although the farewell ceremony took place on September 1, according to the delivery date, it was produced before August 18, 1998. According to the order number 0 8 291 13109, the car was originally intended to be produced as the museum collection. Granted, they’ve “customized” this car with all the collectible options, and that’s pretty much nothing. I don’t know why they did this and how they finally decided to collect an S 320 as the only W/V 140 representative.
Same thing with the CL 500, which is a combination of 189 Obsidian Black and 231 leather Black Nappa. Similarly, it was produced before 19 August, 1998 , order number 0 8 291 13110, after the S 320 (L). In fact, the C 140, one of Mercedes-Benz’s least-produced models, has been silent for quite some time, and we didn’t have a chance to confirm its identity until a media event in 2019. Before that, the C 140 was represented by another CL 600 in the museum’s collection.
Although these 2 cars appeared at the farewell ceremony, they were more as custom-made collection vehicles for the museum, rather than the museum coming to the production line to take away the last 2 cars out of the line. A question arises here, what is the last 140? Is it the last production, or the last delivery? Apparently this one and only commemoration was of official significance and the two cars were included in the museum as a commemoration of the end of production. They appeared in the press release for the end of 140 production, but were not the last vehicles produced or delivered, they were just one of the answers.
In fact, the car featured in the only photos so far of the farewell ceremony isn’t the silver S 320 mentioned above. The car looks a bit odd because it doesn’t have the A432120 Parktronic sensor on the front bumper and has the iconic US market signature sticker on the passenger side of the front windshield but it does have a European license plate bracket and the seats look It doesn’t look black either. That said, the farewell silver W/V 140 is not in the museum’s collection and might be sold to clients.
Under the floor
Mercedes-Benz claims that a total of 432,741 140s were produced. Since two cars in previous chapter have serial number A432120 and A432046, they are not the last 140s in terms of production time or serial number. With over 600 numbers between 432741 and 432120, production is apparently still going on. The production of the 140 was not exactly carried out in Halle 46, the production of Sonderschutz, the armored version (later released as Guard) was carried out in the basement of Sindelfingen, where besides the 210, there was also the later 220.
Let’s get straight to what A432741 is, well, it’s a 1998 S 600 Pullman Guard. Its model year is confusing, the car was actually produced in July 2000, but it does not lie, the final European version 140 only evolved to MY1998. The car is still on the balance sheet of the Russian presidential garage (GON) today, having served Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev. I had a chance to open the hood of this car and check the VIN, the Sonderschutz’s VIN is stamped on the headlight frame on the passenger side.
Mercedes-Benz is right, A432741 is the last serial number, so the production is 432,741. But the car with the last serial number does not absolutely mean it’s the last produced 140, a very simple example can be dismissed that. The Russian Presidential Garage ordered two S 600 Pullman Guards in 2000, the other one was A432740, which has an earlier serial number. But according to the order information, the production order for “the last 140” A432741 was placed on February 14, 2000, order number 0 0 524 10027, and delivered on July 19, 2000. The “next to last” A432740 has order number 0 0 524 10028 was delivered on 15 August 2000. Therefore, the order number and delivery time of A432741 are earlier than A432740, and the serial number has nothing to do with the production sequence.
Why can’t the serial number reflect the actual production sequence? Because VIN is not the only way to identify a car, in fact VIN is more important in after-sales than in production. The immediate reason for a VIN is to deter car theft, or to indicate the extent of a car’s changes to provide cycle-correct replacement parts, but VINs are often lame in this case because the serial number in the VIN is not the actual production sequence, but the parts catalog Assume they are.
The unknown answer
It’s much easier to figure out who was first than who was last. After 10 years of production, many production information interfere with each other, VIN is just the beginning. First of all it is still necessary to split this question into two parts, the regular 140 and the Sonderschutz, they were produced at very different times and places, and are different products, it would be unfair to lump them together.
Since the serial number in VIN is not very informative, what can help? In the data card of Mercedes-Benz, there is the order number, and the delivery date can indirectly infer the production date of the car. The order number is not a data with much information, because it can be updated, for example, an earlier production car can get a new order number after the buyer changes, even if the information is original, the number can only be used to infer the placement sequence of the production order. Personally I’m not a fan of defining the last order number as “the last 140”, even though “the last 140 sold” might make sense. The last two territories to sell the regular 140 were the US and Dubai, and they continued until mid 1999. The last car sold could be A432398, which had order number 0 9 880 10472, with a shipment date of 23 June 1999.
The delivery date is an even more imprecise number, it is not the production start date of the vehicle, nor is it the production end date, the only certainty is that the production date will be earlier than the delivery date, a car can wait long after production is complete before it can be delivered. For example, the very first V12 was A000016, approx built in mid 1990, with order number 0 1 291 70093, which was corrected to 1991, and delayed delivery on March 4, 1991. None of which has anything to do with production. However the last delivered regular 140 is also the A432398 mentioned in previous chapter, it seems to be the “last” 140 in both aspects. And the delivered Sonderschutz is A432727, delieverd on November 3, 2000 to German Authority.
In fact, during the production process, the basic identity of the vehicle is the “Production Number”, which is a string of 7-digit IDs. They are the order in which the real production order was issued, for example, the PN of A432120 is 9353226, but the PN of A432122 is 9353195. Even though their VINs are only 1 car apart, there are actually 31 cars between them and it appears that the later A432122 was produced earlier. In any case, it is still not possible to deduce the end time of production, this information is only possible by consulting the production documents of the factory.
It can be seen that in the world of 140, even such a simple question is difficult to answer. In fact, the article only gives a few common and easily accessible dimensions to interpret the word “last”. It’s a long way to go to figure out who the last 140 was built.
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