Thanks for the picture of the tray. I know that the early cars had them but to what point. Is Meredith's book correct to car 770. I have seen pictures of cars in the 300s with modern tray but cannot determine if they are replacements or not. If anyone has an early car can you post the type of tray that came with it early or late one. Thanks, John
This may be a long story ... and that's why I haven't answered earlier..
To make a short story long....
Well....,
....I don't believe that the number 000770 / 000771 in the official Mercedes literature (parts lists 10126 and 10097) is correct.
There is no change in the wooden tray from 770 to 771 !! All follow-up literature (Engelen, Meredith, etc.) is only refering to the initial MB literature with the parts lists being the best.
There was only one significant change, which was the omission of the the additional glued-in wooden platform for the ash-tray on very early cars ... roughly below serial no. 000100, which you can recognize on Gerster's factory brochure's picture above.
Additionally, all Pagodas with regular VINS had a wooden tray
with ashtray, also # 000001 !!
Nevertheless, the change from tray with platform to later tray without platform
was/must have occured much earlier than 770 / 771 since many very original cars in the 200 - 700 serial number array do not have the earlier wooden tray anymore.
I therefore guess
- and it is only a guess since I do not have the scientific proof for this -
... that the number 770 / 771 is incorrect and much more likely to be a transfer misprint from the early factory hand-written notes/sheets into the printed parts lists etc.
For instance, I do have a factory list on all wire colors for the wiring harness of the 230 SL, and that one is hand-written only, not typed.
As such I
believe - and I claim I
believe but I do not know whether that is the truth or not -
that the original hand-written notes carry
770 / 771 instead of
770 and 771with the striked-out initial "7" of the 770 / 771.
In German writing it is common that the number "7" carries anyway a dash in the middle in order to better distinguish it from the number "1".
I know very well that this behavior is completely unknown in the English written hemisphere.
As I mentioned, I have no secure proof for my assumption. This would only be possible if I (and Alfred ...) could have access to the Mercedes factory archive and have a look to the original documents about the changes .... which usually is inaccessible to completely unimportant MB owners like me ....
Maybe I can get it work to talk to Guenter Engelen about this topic again ... he has better access to the Mercedes archive than I will ever have...
Regards,
Achim