1935 Mercedes-Benz 290 Short Wheel Base ... - Road Scholars

1935 Mercedes-Benz 290 Short Wheel Base Sindelfingen Cabriolet A Original Exterior Color: Red

VIN: 201729

Original Interior Color: Burgundy

Body Number: 817402

Original Convertible top color: Tan

Motor Number: 122450 Motor Type: PS 68 Transmission: 27815 Lizenz Maybach Motorenbau

The Details • Numbers matching and complete car with trim and rare parts. • The only short wheel base Cabriolet A bodied at Sindelfingen in 1935 with special fenders. • Special ordered in 1935 by a vintner in Burgundy, France.

• Bought in 1957 and in the ownership/preserved for 56 years. • 40,333 Kilometers and many visible places of original paint. • Completely original interior and convertible top.

• Possible class winner at any International Concours d’Elegance.

“A handful of special orders were bodied by Sindelfingen-1935 Cabriolet A , a 1936 Roadster, and certain long-wheel base versions of the 1934-1937 Cabriolet B and Cabriolet D. The average price of a luxury 290 model was exactly half that of a 540 K.” -Dennis Adler, Daimler & Benz: The Complete History A new Mercedes-Benz series, internally coded W 18, entered production in 1933 as a replacement for the type 350/370 Mannheim series. These cars, more commonly referred to as the Type 290, would be an evolutionary model. Incorporating advanced designs such as hydraulic brakes, dropped-box section frame, a transverse leaf-spring/coil-spring front suspension, a coil-sprung

Kevin Watts | [email protected] | (919) 854-2277

floating rear axle, four speed manual gearbox (Maybach Schnellgang transmission) and a 60 horsepower side-valve six-cylinder engine. Body styles included a four-door touring car, a four-door sedan and four twodoor convertibles or cabriolets (A,B,C,D). The 290 was manufactured from 1933 to 1937 with a total of 8,214 models produced. Most 290 bodies were traditional

and rather ordinary. The few exceptions were the stream lined Saloon, Roadster, and Cabriolet. One book on Mercedes-Benz catalogs 25 different body styles on the 290’s 2,880-millimeter (113 inch) short chassis and 3,300-millimeter (130-inch) long chassis. While nearly all of the 290s built were assembled at the Mannheim Werk and bore the Mannheim emblem just

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1935 Mercedes-Benz 290 Short Wheel Base Sindelfingen Cabriolet A

This short wheel base Cabriolet A (VIN#201729), was the only example built at Sindelfingen in 1935.

produced. Aside from a handful of one off customers, the Sindelfingen Werk designed and produced nearly all the coachwork for the 500 K and 540 K series. In Werner Oswald’s “Mercedes-Benz Personenwagen 1886-1986,” He indicates that VIN 201729 was also the last 290 built in 1935 by its motor number 122450.

VIN#201729 features deep front fenders that differ from any known 290 A Cabriolet

The 290/320 models listed from $4,000 to $6,000 in the U.S. The 500k/540k started around

forward of the driver door, a handful of special orders were bodied by Sindelfingen. It’s estimated that 19 short wheel base cabriolet 290’s were produced in 1935-36.


$10,000 and went up to $14,000 for the Special Roadster. Today it’s easy to think of German cars in terms of the Autobahn, but the 290 model would have been well suited to narrow, twisting roads where handling trumps horsepower. That is why a particular gentleman ordered this special bodied short wheel base Cabriolet for his winery in France.

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The Story of VIN# 201729

Richard Brigstocke’s 56-year ownership A good portion of the credit for this story belongs to a general from York, Pennsylvania who helped liberate Arles, France during WWII At the end of the war, this general initiated an association between Arles and York. A Twinning Committee was formed and the two towns began exchanging teachers and then young men and women apprentices. In 1958 this committee helped me get a job with a maritime agency in Port St. Louis, Bouches du Rhone, France and to book passage on an Italian freighter. Port St. Louis was a bustling industrial seaport on the delta at the mouth of the Rhone


River. Large tonnages of wood pulp from Scandinavia were converted into paper products. Local chemical fertilizer and petrochemical plants shipped products out. Port St. Louis is about 30 minutes south of Arles and Arles was as much the center for restaurants, cafes, museums, art exhibits, bullfighting arenas, and open-air theatre productions as Port St. Louis was the busy heavy industrial shipping seaport. Fortunately, there were two other young men boarding at my pension there, a Parisian and a young man from Belgrade, Yugoslavia. Almost immediately, we were known as the three musketeers. A favorite afternoon

trip was to catch a bus to Arles, take in all that Arles had to offer, and then lounge in the cafes on the boulevard and drink lemonades. One evening while waiting for the next bus back to Port St. Louis, I caught a glimpse of a handsome car at a garage in a line of cars that looked abandoned or at least had been waiting a very long time for service. I returned to ArIes as quickly as possible, and learned that the car belonged to a mechanic employed by the garage and that it was for sale. The garage owner and the mechanic told me that the 1935 Mercedes Benz 290

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cabriolet had a lot of history and it was for sale for 100,000 francs, a little over $200.00. I told them I would take the car and we shook hands all around. A week later the car was ready to be turned over to me. Despite being very anxious to drive the car, I listened carefully to the information about its history. According to the garage owner and mechanic the car was custom ordered from Mercedes by an important local vintner. Originally, the now black car was a bold dark red-wine color. They showed me the enameled emblem on the radiator, one of several impressive emblems that they claimed were those of a very exclusive association that


tasted and pronounced good vintage years and those not so good. I was told that the car had been bought at auction in a dispersal sale of some kind in Marseilles. The successful bidder took off an assortment of flags and banners and flag-holding devices. They said that when they picked up the car from this man that these and other items were in a large box in the comer of the garage. Some months later, with address in hand, I drove to Marseilles and found the location. As I headed up the street, white, sun-lit homes on both sides, adults and children playing, I saw the address on the opposite side of the street and was able to

turn around at the upper end of the street. When I started back down, it was deserted. I parked in front of the house but could not rouse anyone there or at the neighbors either. I drove back to Port St. Louis thinking if they felt that strongly about the car, maybe I didn’t need the German paraphernalia. In my job, the ships came and went seven days a week so ever so often I was given a long week off. By Fall, my fellow musketeers had left for their homes and the car became a real good friend and companion. I drove it to Switzerland. I drove it to the Mercedes factory in Frankfurt and asked for a survey of the car. They apparently took turns

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driving around the parking lot and then told me that it did not need anything. I drove it to Paris where I tried to look up the Parisian musketeer, but without any luck. At many of the Parisian traffic lights, the crossing young men would exclaim, “quelle voiture,” what a car! Parking the car in front of the swanky George V Hotel, I was well received and given a small but affordable room on the upper most floor under the eaves. I drove it to Calais where I parked it and caught the airplane ferry to England, and caught the train to London. Upon return, I drove the car to the Riviera where I parked on


the boulevard and again had no trouble getting very inexpensive accommodations at the ritziest hotel. At the end of my working stint, my employer helped arrange passage for me and the car from Genoa, Italy to New York. We came through some very heavy weather and my car was practically untouched while its front bumper really did a job on the side of a fellow passenger’s brand new Mercedes. In New York, After I scraped some French soil off the bottom of the car, and the inspectors and stevedores managed to help themselves to several nice chamois cloths, I was given the

go-ahead. Out of New York and on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, I had no trouble keeping up with the late 1950s traffic. Eventually, I parked the car in my parents’ barn where it stayed for many years. At one point, I did take the car to a supposedly reputable car restoration firm but they did little but take parts off of it. Then I stored the car at my home in Baltimore, MD and got it out again when my son and grandsons encouraged me to do so. I spent many pleasurable hours working on the body of the car.

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