I was at a dealer picking up some parts during the middle 80s. A shipment of factory rebuilt engines was delivered while I was there and I got a chance to look at them.

I noticed that the spot where the engine number was supposed to be was covered up by a tag with the words MERCEDES-BENZ and then that long Tagger word. There was no engine number on the engine, but there was a spot under the tag where I was told the dealer could stamp a number in by hand if they wanted to.

This place would stamp in the original engine number, from the original data card, if they were doing the replacement. Otherwise they sold it without any engine number assigned.

They said they sold about six of them a week.