Mystery Mercedes lady

We thought we were clever and typed in the number plate’s number - IA 93280 - on Google, thinking it would be an easy way to crack the code of the history of this rather flashy Mercedes-Benz and the rather fashionably lady leaning against its robust front wing.

But we were wrong. The internet is least as full of unsolved mysteries as it is full of facts. Oh yes, we did come across other pictures of what has to be the same car in a more modern setting of a manicured lawn that looks suspiciously like that of Pebble Beach. It’s a supercharged Mercedes 380K, or so the web learnt us. The car was supposedly shown at the Geneva Motor Show of 1934 in two-tone red and with red (burgundy?) leather interior. No further info available, or so it seems.

But then there are one or two more historical pictures of a Mercedes with that plate, taken by the great Anglo-Hungarian Zoltán Glass, and these are perhaps far more intriguing. One of them is captioned: “Couple beside a Mercedes-Benz 500K convertible in front of the Junkers aeroplane, General Von Hindenberg'. So that can’t be the same car, can it? A 380K is not a 500K with very different wings. Plus despite being black and white pictures, it seems that the car photographed by Glass is much lighter in its paint colours too. And who is the mystery couple? Is our Friday lady a part of that, too..?

Words by Jeroen Booij. Picture from the archive.

Published:

Friday March 26th, 2021

Tjerk Neijmeijer

24 April 2021, 18:04

Your picture shows a very peculiar front wing, which at first I thought was damage on the front right wing. In Jan Melin's and Sven Hernstroem's book about the supercharged 8-cylinders MB's , you will find in Volume 2 on page 138 another picture of this car with the Junkers about to land with an excellent view of the front wing, mudguard and the number plate.
They identify it as a Type 380 Cabriolet A and show two more pictures of the same car in Volume one, pages 166 and 167, although the car is now a single color, whereas all the pictures you can find of the car with the Junkers show it being duo-color, but still with the unusual front wings which kind of identify this car. The mudguard appears to have a locker built-in.

Hergen Deuter

29 March 2021, 14:18

Seems no mystery indeed. All b/w photos of IA 93280, taken by Zoltán Glass for Mercedes-Benz at different locations, clearly show the same 380, most likely a public relations car of the company, while the car presented in Geneva in 1934 with a really much darker color scheme, probably was decorated with this historic Berlin license plate many years later after restoration. The international badges may have been installed at IA 93280 for world-wide marketing.

Michael Schlenger

26 March 2021, 16:44

Not much of a mystery, in my opinion. The Mercedes is a 380, no doubt about that, and if it says "500" elsewhere with the same car, this is wrong. The young lady is just a contemporary photo model - the same applies to the guy with whom she was photographed on the same occasion from a different angle. As for the badges, I don't see why a wealthy owner from Berlin shouldn't have been also a member of foreign automobile clubs, as well (there lived some pretty cosmopolitan people in the German capital before the war). But since Zoltan Glass was a works photographer of Daimler-Benz, it's also possible that they just added these badges on some photos that were to be published in foreign countries.

Arnoud van der Sman

26 March 2021, 12:57

I have the same feeling as Dominque Bres a TDF badge seems odd to me.
this not a badge you could buy as a souvenir during your holidays in France.
but a car with German plates being a member of the Touring Club de France is not logical ( me)
the second badges seems to be British.. same story I guess…

Dominique BRES

26 March 2021, 11:15

I am suprised to see the "French Touring Club" grill badge in front of the radiator on this car .... ?!

Joop Terpstra

26 March 2021, 09:21

If i let my brain flood it could well be a photo of Magda Schneider at the foot of the Obersalzberg concentrating to see the Berghof in the distance. Young Romy Schneider still sitting on the lovely leather backseat asking her mother what she is looking for :)

Mystery Mercedes lady

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