For a 4 cyIinder car of 4.85 litres, this was an advanced machine in its day and could comfortably cruise at almost sixty miles per hour. This ‘Model of Yesteryear’ has been reproduced from the actual machine in the famous Daimler-Benz Museum at Stuttgart in Germany.

The (Y3-2) 1910 Benz Limousine was released in 1965.

Variations/Rarities: The headlight component can be mounted either way up giving a 'low' and 'high' headlamp arrangement, this is only found on the cream bodied versions and does not affect the value.
The first issue was painted cream with a dark green roof and red or green plastic seats. It had brass plated windscreen frame, grille shell, headlights, gear lever/handbrake and 12 spoke wheels which were fitted with black plastic tyres.
The radiator grille insert was red or dark green plastic and the metal steering wheel was painted body colour.
The model was recoloured to light green gloss with a chartreuse yellow roof. This led to some cream bodies being fitted with yellow roofs and some light green bodies were fitted with dark green roofs. Both types are rare but this is a commonly faked variation so very careful examination for tool marks, fresh paint damage or fresh metal showing at the rivets is advised.
The model was again recoloured this time to dark metallic green with a black roof and again roofs got fitted to the wrong body colour leaving two more rare versions, light green with a black roof and dark metallic green with a chartreuse yellow roof and like the earlier issues fakes abound so extreme caution should be taken when purchasing any of these variations.
The metallic green Benzes all had black plastic steering wheels and the final dark metallic green issue had the giftware mounting holes removed from the baseplate.

There was an extremely rare trial run in purple and was apparently on sale which makes it basically a normal code 1 issue but this has no proof as yet.

Possibly only 12 of these gold plated models were produced and supplied to sales reps to show customers what the plated giftware would look like. This is one of the all time rare plated models.

In 1984 the model was re-released as part of the Connoisseurs Collection where it was recoloured to a black body with blue panels and a black roof. This version has light brown seats, chromed wire wheels and a 4 prong spare tyre carrier.

Scale: 1:54

Cream body & chassis; dark green roof

Light green body & chassis; chartreuse yellow roof

Light green body & chassis; black roof (Wanted)

Dark metallic green body & chassis; black roof

The rare cream body with yellow roof (Wanted)

Blue from the 1984 Connoisseurs Collection

Dark blue, gold trim, from the 1996 Matchbox Collectibles 40th Anniversary Collection

With and without two holes in baseplate

The gap between the two mudguard struts (A) that are only found on the first issue were joined with a web (B) on all later issues

(C) shows the high headlights which were due to being incorrectly assembled, (D) shows the headlights in the normal low position