ART DECO MARVEL BY AUTOPIONEER

RESEARCHED over a period of almost two years, Autopioneer has pieced together a very rare Mercedes-Benz. It all started when its oldest customer (aged 97 years) gave the company an advertisement from a magazine and requested a model.

The original Mercedes Benz 540k car was shown on January 4th, 1939, at an exhibition in Brussels. On July 7th 1941 the car for Count Fredrik Wachtmeister, with the registration number A 976, was registered in Stockholm. In the chaos of the war the trail is lost, until 1947.

In 1947/1948 the Mercedes was sold to Venezuela. An American bought the car there and brought it to the USA in 1954. In the 1960s, a Florida doctor bought the Mercedes and then sold it to the Drottningholm Collection, Sweden, in 1989. In 1992 the Mercedes was sold to an investment company, that replaced the Frejat body, turning the car into a roadster. Unfortunately, this treasure was probably 'lost' again.

One hope remains - in 2019 Autopioneer launched the Maybach SW 38 Heinrich Müller, Schuco 1936 (Autopioneer 05). Since then, the grandson of the last owner of this unique Maybach has been in contact to provide previously unknown and unpublished photos and information. Autopioneer will soon hand over this material to the relevant archives and publish them. It hopes that it can do something similar with this car. Who would have thought that a model car would help fill historical gaps in automotive history?

Find out more at www.autopioneer.de. ■