Stuttgart- Manufacturer Daimler deprecated reports that Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler's state car is about to be sold to a rich Russian, saying Tuesday that the vehicle had been just one of a pool of government VIP cars in Berlin. A dealer representing the current German owner of the car also rejected claims Hitler's own car had been "discovered," saying its existence was public knowledge since it and others had already been on view for years at a private museum in the US city of Las Vegas.
"Hitler didn't even have a driver's licence. He must have been a passenger in many cars, maybe this one too," said the dealer in Germany's Bielefeld area, who asked that his name not be reported.
The Monday report that the Mercedes 770 K would fetch millions of euros upset many people in Germany, where authorities have tried to squash any trade in Nazi memorabilia.
Josef Ernst, who heads the car-history department at Daimler in Stuttgart, said, "There is no such thing as Hitler's own car." He said the Fuehrer's chancellery had purchased a whole series of such cars and built up a fleet.
"Which one carried who is something you can't prove any more," said Ernst, adding that Daimler made 88 of the luxury cars between 1938 and 1943. They were an armour-plated, convertible variant of its W-150 model.
The 7.7-litre engine could only push the heaviest 4.8-ton cars to a maximum 80 kilometres per hour, Ernst added. He confirmed that buyers appeared to be more interested in the Nazi connection than in the car's engineering.
Daimler keeps two 770 K cars, including one on display at its Stuttgart museum of automotive history.
A Dusseldorf car dealer, Michael Froehlich, said a Russian had commissioned him to buy six Nazi cars. The Bielefeld dealer said the owner had withdrawn the 770 K from sale because of the public fuss.
