Mystery MBZ License Plate:
 

Attached is a photo of my 1978 300SD wearing its original license plate. Who can identify this mystery plate????

Looks like it says U.S.A., see a bit of photo wizardry attached

Very peculiar. It appears to have a license tab attached, which suggests it's not an exempt plate. That would seem to rule out government agencies.

It does in fact say 'USA.' It does in fact have an expiration decal too....

That's a plate for US forces in Germany. It looks like the 1974-1983 vintage which matches your car. The tag is the month and the expiration year in super tiny print.

Kar-Tec is correct.

The car was bought in Germany by a service member and driven there for 2 years. The plates expired in 1980.

The car was converted to U.S. Spec when imported. They even changed the bumpers and disabled the rear fog light!!!!!

How did you know????

I wish I could claim to know it off the top of my head but I'm a pretty good internet researcher...

http://www.worldlicenseplates.com/jpglps/FO_US_Germany_GI2.jpg

BAM...Kartek

I just happened to see the exact same car, minus whitewalls in Reno today. The plate read 78 MBZ. Member here?

I first went to D in '86
 

(before joining the Army) There was an office building my neighbor worked in and there was a box full of those green plated - never issued. We threw them out with some scrap metal, shoulda kept them. But I do have an "HK" - 'Heeres Kommando' and an "AD" - 'American Driver' or 'Amerikaner (in) Deutschland.'

So I wonder what the 'NW' prefix means????

It was a Euro-spec 300SD? :confused:

"disabled the rear fog light!!!!!" Sheeesh!
Did they confiscate the trunk-triangle too?

Happy Motoring, Mark

Mercedes couldn't sell the cars with the trunk triangles in the USA because they weren't regulation size!

Someone on this forum claimed that anything not on the DOT list wasn't allowed.
Unfortunately, the only MB trunk-triangle I had, got sold with my Euro-delivery 240D, to a neigbor. If I'd known that the car would eventually be stolen and torched, I would've hung on to it (along with a few other items)
My '84 Euro TD did come with a German folding triangle in a plastic case. And many years ago, I found a similar pair of cased German folding triangles in someone's curbside trash. Today, I carry them in my 240Ds. Too bad if they're not 'regulation-size'!

On a similar note, apparently the flash-to-pass headlight feature must hve been illegal here, as my '60 Fintail has the switch built into the turn-signal, but the wiring and relay aren't there.

Locally, here in Virgnia, Euro-headlights used to be prohibited by state safety inspection regulations. Many years ago, my Dad purchaed a Euro 250SE. A PO had installed the 'legal' US stacked sealed-beam headlights, but the first time we got the car inspected, the inspector made us remove the factory foglights, citing some rule prohibiting more than 4 headllights on a car!
However, I reinstalled them when my parents moved to Virginia Beach, and Dad never had any inspection issues there!

Many '50s imports, such as the VW Beetle and Morris Minor, used to have 'semaphore' turn-signal flags that would pop out from the door-posts. I would occasionally ask the owner of one of these cars why these items were broken-off or missing and was told that inspectors insisted the 'semaphores' had to be 'removed' to pass inspection.

Happy Motoring, Mark