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An East Indies Mercedes Mystery (Upd. Sindelfingen / Herman Ahrens?)

Until shortly after WW II Indonesia was a Dutch colony into which rich planters and business men imported lots of luxury cars. One such example is this 1935 Mercedes-Benz sedan owned by mr. Tan Tjoan Keng from Batavia (nowadays Djakarta). Mr. Tan used the Mercedes for long-distance travels through Europe and Africa. The Mercedes was equipped with a 5-litre compressor engine, a fuel tank that could contain 180 litres and seats that could be reclined to create sleeping space. At first we thought it was one of the Autobahn-Kurier models, but then doubt settled in as there are many differences. We think it is a one-off coachwork, as it has many special features like two built-in spare wheels, two batteries and many cupboards, including one to carry guns. The Mercedes won the public’s prize at the Concours d’Elegance at Semarang in 1935 and earlier first prizes at Scheveningen in Holland and Zürich, Switzerland. Anyone recognizes this very nice luxury automobile and can tell us more about it?

Update II: Frans Vrijaldenhoven found an advert from 1949 in which the Mercedes was offered for 16.000 guilders by a Dutch dealer. A quick calculation tells us that this is a little more than 60.000 euro’s or almost 82.000 dollars in today’s money. And that for a 15-year old second-hand car!

Today on PostWarClassic: Take a good look when it passes you

Comments

#15 2011-08-16 21:41

to Emilia,
a photograph of a mercedes was shown to me from mr Tan licence R-8490.
I think it was a european car.
Do you recognise this?
SH Sie (indra)

#14 2011-08-16 20:07

Mystery car, mystery man.

Perhaps Emilia could be so kind to share a picture of the car and his owner (in black and/or white) with us?

And with my simple mind: why would one desire to own two similar cars in just a different color? Therefore, x252 must be the same car!!??

#13 2011-08-11 01:05

answer for#11 S.H.sie.The pictures in
Spain,Egypt,in the desert,show a white car,license plate x252,also have picture
of the same automobile in black (Brussels)1937,same license platex252.
Emilia

#12 2011-08-03 20:43

to emilia,
did mr. tan tjoan keng travelled with this car in different countries you mentioned above

#11 2011-04-27 21:28

read something interesting last night and
a possible explanation why the white car
mr tan tjoan keng drove, might have been
painted black.He writes in a letter,dated
6-1935 that "der wagen" is heavily
damaged,sometim es it was feasible to put
the car on the Dampfer or the train,where
the car was really mishandled,acco rding to him.The roads in Istanbul were medieval,so possibly more damage.Upon
return was the car painted black to
camouflage the damage? Emilia

#10 2011-04-23 21:41

car picture collection of mr Tan Tjoan
Keng that I have,show these license plates. X82 X83 X84 X52 R5878 H89917
X252 and H99025.There is nothing else I
can contribute.
Emilia Noya,
Daughter of the late Mr
Mr Tan Tjoan Keng

#9 2011-04-22 01:41

above black car has a licenseplate of
H99025,I have a picture w/same licenseplate on a completely different car in norway???? also licenseplate
H-89917(black car)was extensively used in Europe by mr tan tjoan keng.

#8 2011-04-18 01:54

The article is all about my late father,tan tjoan keng.I have a lot of
pictures of the man with his fancy
automobiles.He traveled to
spain,egypt,isr ael,Switzerland and so on. Emilia

#7 2011-02-11 10:29

In the book "Mercedes-Benz Automobile, vol. 2" published by BLV Verlag Munich in 1982 and written by Heribert Hofner (that's me), three photos of the car in question car are shown on page 142. The car is light-coloured there (probably white) and is on pre-War Dutch number plates X-252. The original factory photographs I used - I got them from the works archives - had the caption "500 K Spezial-Stromlinienwage n, Karosserie Sindelfingen, 1935". To my opinion "X-252" and "H-99025" are the same car, obviously resprayed and re-registered in later life. I really can't imagine that two identically-bodied "one-off" 500 Ks were both delivered in the Netherlands...

#6 2011-02-09 12:07

Het mysterie wordt alleen maar groter:
De auto zoals afgebeeld in het eerder door mij genoemde boek, een duidelijke fabrieksfoto van een nieuwe auto, is wit.
De prachtige vondst van de heer Vrijaldenhove toont ook een witte auto.Maar de auto van de heer Tan is donker of zwart.Nu kan het natuurlijk zo zijn dat Tan een witte auto kocht, die vervolgens donker liet spuiten, waarop de auto later weer wit gespoten is. Het kan, maar is het ook waarschijnlijk ?
Is er nu niet sprake van twee auto's ?
Een leuke vraag voor het archief van Daimler-Benz ?

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