N.J. car dealer: Mercedes bought online was "Hitler's car"

Zenop Tuncer, owner of Euro Tech Motors, stands next to the Mercedes-Benz 320 Cabriolet D convertible he believes was previously owned by Adolf Hitler. / WCBS

(CBS News) EDGEWATER, N.J. - An auto repair shop owner was shocked to find out that a Mercedes-Benz he purchased over the Internet for a customer has strong ties to Adolf Hitler.

"He was surprised," Zenop Tuncer, owner of Euro Tech Motors, told CBSNews.com in recalling his conversation with the customer. "We were all surprised!"

Tuncer, whose shop specializes in classic cars, got a request from real estate developer Fred Daibes to find a Mercedes-Benz 540K. However, Tuncer could only procure a 1942 Mercedes 320 Cabriolet D convertible, which Daibes agreed to buy.

Tuncer said he should have been tipped off because the car looked like a military car.

"The color is a flat black, and there are patches covering what would have been a place for the flag post and the siren," he explained. It's definitely for a general."

The serial number had a small eagle on top of a swastika, indicating it had been made for the Nazis.

/ WCBS

The car needed some parts, so Tuncer contacted Mercedes-Benz with the serial number. He was surprised when the company told him to look at the serial number again and see if there was an eagle with a swastika next to it. Tuncer found the swastika, which he said was so small he missed it at first.

According to CBS station WCBS in New York, Mercedes-Benz custom made eight of the vehicles for the Nazis.

"Mercedes said, 'We did make some of these cars but only for Hitler,'" WCBS quoted the car's owner, real estate developer Fred Daibes, as saying.

However, Mercedes spokesperson Adam Paige cast doubt on the story in a conversation with CBSNews.com.

"This happens at least once a year," he said. "Someone claims something that they think they have, to make something more of the vehicle."

Contacted by the New York Times, Mercedes also offered a statement from an unnamed company historian, who said, "The 320 was considered a middle-class car, and that fact alone puts the Edgewater car claim into a very speculative area."

The original owner did not know the car's history and said that his grandfather brought the vehicle to the United States from Germany after the war, WCBS reported. Daibes said he paid $175,000 for the car a year ago, and has recently turned down an offer of $1.5 million.

"It's Hitler's car, he's a devil, but you know, he's still part of history," Daibes told WCBS. "From a financial point of view the car is worth more money than when I paid for it so that's the only way I look at it."

Tuncer agreed, adding that he would keep the car as well if it were his.

"I would not touch the car," Tuncer stated. "I would keep it the original way. It has a story on it."

[pproctor1]

The eagle over the swastika is a characteristic "waffenamt" mark and merely signifies that the car was used by the German military.

[Eugene2012]

Sieg Heil Mercedes Benz!

[Bojax39]

SO what's your point? That a German car company makes cars for German officials?

[KnowerseekerReturns]

I would sell the car for the $1.5 mil and give the money to charity (specifically Christian charities, since I'm a Christian). God is well known for taking evil things and turning them into good.

[Herne42]

Im Pagan and proud of it. (Native American and Irish).... Id donate the cash to a Jewish fund for holocaust survivors. Or as a museum piece.

[Bojax39]

Oh please. If somebody plunked a million five into your lap your very last thoughts would be religious or charitable. You'd quickly donate the proceeds to yourself. :-)

[rwsmith29456]

This is Bonnie and Clyde's death car that was machine-gunned by Hitler while they were fleeing over the Alps to Switzerland.

[Herne42]

200 years from now... people will believe that. Al Capone was supplying booze to the nazis, filling drinks as they machine gunned away, while Albert Einstein was lobbing grenades from the sidelines.
Next thing y'know old Abe Lincoln will be vampire hunter....oh... wait... too late. ;)

[Threewarriors]

When I was a kid, the radio announced that one of Hitlers caps sold at auction. I said I would buy it and then burn it. My brothers said: Are you crazy its worth alot of money. I am retired now and I would still buy it and burn it.

[Herne42]

Math, science and writing give us intelligence. History, gives us wisdom. Hitler liked burning the past. Don't go down that road..
Never forget.

[lucifersshadow]

If they are willing to pay that much for the old rattletrap, I'd be selling it faster than you can flick flies off os sh**! Mercedes says its bull anyway . . .

[AttyFAM]

This is all wrong. As Mercedes-Benz noted, the 340 was a middle class car, unlike the 540 K, which was a top of the line vehicle. Goering had a 540 K Special Roadster, one of 23 hand made vehicles from 1937-1938. His was the only armor plated one made by Mercedes-Benz. Many news photographs show Goering in his car, and that helped with the latter restoration of the vehicle to its state at the time. The Goering car along with two other 540 K Special Roadsters (one made for one of the Warner Brothers and another for an Italian prince) ended up in Connecticut after the war. The cars from Germany and Italy were commandeered by the US military during the occupation and then sold as war surplus. In those days, few people were willing to purchase products associated with the Nazis.

There was a tendency among inexperienced US Army personnel describing these cars to refer to them in documentation as "Hitler car", and they did not pay any attention to the model or year of the car. That it was an M-B was enough to garner the label. In fact, many of these were simply military staff cars.

But M-B itself always kept very careful labels of all cars that it made and sold, especially both engine and vehicle numbers for all 540K and 540K Special Roadsters. Whom they were built for or sold to can be learned directly from M-B.

Now as to Hitler, unlike Goering, Hitler did not drive, did not love cars and had no intentions of driving. He was driven about mostly in M-B built staff cars. He never ordered a vehicle from M-B (Goering's car was a special order) and to the best of my knowledge never had one registered in his own name.

[Moveon_Misfits]

I guess owning Hitler's car is a prize to some.
I wouldn't give a Deutsche Mark for it.
Quite an expensive conversation piece.
Hey, Look everybody I own Der Fuhrer's Benz!!!

[test43]

it was also stated in another article that ashes from human remains were found in the truck, I guess it really was Hilter's car.

[beachgirl2365]

Even if it wasn't owned by Hitler himself, given its history with the Nazi regime, I'd take the money and run........let the new owner have it's karma rub off on them

[Iachesis]

karma would also rub off from the money , most likely...