Can someone explain why....

[Whale]

So I write Andreas Harz at the BMW Mobile Archives to find out the particulars for my VIN. Here is the reply...

Dear Sir,

Thank you for your email.

The BMW 2002 tii US VIN 2780019 was manufactured on November 9th, 1973

and delivered on November 21st, 1973 to the BMW importer Hoffman Motors

Corp. in New York City. The original colour was Amazonas Green (not

Jade), paint code 076.

We hope, this is helpful for you.

Yours sincerely,

BMW Mobile Tradition

Group Archives

Now, here's the weird part... Our color tag says that we're 078 Jadegrun. A few scratches in the trunk show that we have the original color (i.e., Amazonas Green hasn't been painted over with Jadegrun). Also, the VIN all match and no "funny business" seems to have occured.

Anyone have an explaination for the color mix-up?

Also, does anyone have a pic of Amazonas Green (076) 2002 to share?

[AndyS]

http://www.bmw2002faq.com/content/view/32/32/ Total repaint in the past?

My cab had about 4 different colors on it we finally found some chaminox up under some hard to get places. that was its orginal color. I might be interpeting ti wrong but it looks like jade green was not an option for paint on 2002s but was for 1502s and 2002 targas??

[Napes]

God-forbid! Of all the hundreds of thousands of ' 02s that were built someone made a mistake on the color of one. Someone who worked for the factory in 1973 is going to have to be taken out and shot.

Bob

[Whale]

LOL !!!

It's really of no consequence... the color mix-up, that is. They probably ran out of Amazonasgrun stickers and threw a Jadegrun one on there just to get the damned thing out of the factory. And since it's one of the first "squaries", the production wrinkles hadn't been ironed out yet.

Again, it's no big deal. We were just wondering if it was a common occurrance with 2002's.

There aren't that many Amazonasgruns out there though. Or at least, they seem to be hard to find.

[rocket_rob]

slightly OT...

Can you give more detail on who you emailed? Is there really someone at BMW that will give you some history on an '02 VIN?!

[Whale]

Sure. I added his email address in the first part of my post. You can find it there right after his name (in the first sentence).

He'll probably be drowning in requests, but he seems to be a polite and helpful guy.

[Napes]

slightly OT...

Can you give more detail on who you emailed? Is there really someone at BMW that will give you some history on an '02 VIN?!

Yea, just use the address in the first post, send him your VIN and Andreas will email you all kinds of initial data on the car.

Bob Napier

[schwarz75]

(nt)

[brad_c-ville_VA]

i always find that the real test of a repaint is the glove box. usually repainted cars have the original color under the dash and in the glove box...unless they are a frame off resto, of course.

but, i suspect your theory of a factory sticker swap is correct. although it is possible someone just bought a new sticker years ago and stuck it on.

[Harv]

I think Les has a similer problem or quandry with his touring.

Les?

John

[SteveJ]

Easy fix.

Cut of the first half of the color sticker. Leave the other half that just says GRUN.

Good question.

Do we trust what we see on the car, or what the factory tells us?

Unless you are the original owner of the car, there is 30 plus years of history and opportunity for someone, somewhere to change something.

Even still, Schitt happens.

[BarryA]

that came back via e-mail from Andreas regarding my late series I '69 sunroof (vin 1664730).

The consensus is that the change-over from model year 1969 series I (painted grills, 2 piston calpers, long neck diff) to series II (grill slat covers, 4 piston calipers, short neck diff) came at vin # 1664760, making my car one of the last series I cars built. Most of the info I've found suggests that the change over occured at the very end of calendar 1968, with the last of the series I cars built before the Christmas/New Years holiday period, and series II production starting immediately after.

In the case of my car, I know the full history back to day one (tourist delivery at the factory in early Feb '69, early service stamps from several locations in Europe prior to shipping back to the US, lived the rest of it's life until I bought it in Napa & Santa Rosa CA). The e-mail response I got from Andreas lists a production date in late January of 1969, with the same delivery info you have (Hoffman Motors in NYC) which doesn't correlate to to the car's known delivery history.

Mike Self & I exchanged a couple of e-mails on the subject following the reciept of Andreas's e-mail - the only logical conclusion we could come up with was that possibly the build date on the factory's records was the date the car was actually released for delivery, and the factory may have tagged all US spec cars with the Hoffman Motors destination, regardless of whether they were picked up at the factory, or delivered to a dealer elsewhere in the US. A couple of followup e-mails to Mobile Tradition have not extracted any further info......

[Whale]

BMW started production on the 1974 model sometime around the very beginning of November 1973. (Ours is the 19th 1974 USA tii and it was "born" on the 9th of November 1973.)

Someone emailed me privately and said that they had the same color issue with BMW as well. The factory must have been kind of hectic during the change-over in production.

This whole color mixup issue is nothing more than silliness. If anything, we appreciate it a little more than we already do. And in the end, that's all that really matters.

[c.d.iesel]

Amazongren NOT >>

[SteveJ]

The delivery date is when Max signed for the cars. That does not mean that they were actually in the US yet, just that the factory had relinquished ownership to Hoffman Motors. They were in his name at the dock in Germany and for the voyage stateside.