A beautiful Mercedes-Benz C-Class sedan, seen in Beijing in May 2014. The compact German limousine was in great shape, black with darkened windows, and sitting on the original alloy wheels. Sadly, the Mercedes hood ornament was missing. But I didn’t care, because this old Benz had the oldest black license plate I had ever seen:
The famous black license plates were issued to foreign-owned companies from the 1980s to the mid-00s. These companies could buy a car locally or import one. There were no limits on the number of cars, or price, or engine type. The numbering started at A·00001 and then up. So the lower the number the older the car. Each province and municipality had its own black-license plate program. This C-Class has 京A·00695, and that makes it a very early car: the 695th black-license-plate vehicle in Beijing! That’s pure-black license plate royalty.
The W202 Mercedes-Benz C-Class was manufactured from 1993 until 2000, with a facelift in 1997. Our black car is an original pre-facelift example. The W202 was not officially sold in China. Official imports of the C-Class only started in 2004. But some W202s arrived in China via the gray market, via embassies, and via the black license plate scheme.
Sadly, there was no engine badge on the car so I can’t be sure what is under the hood here. It only had a tiny Marlboro sticker below the right rear light. But it seems a high-end trim car, and as far as I can see these alloy wheels were standard on the C220 model. The C220 was powered by a 2.2 liter four with 150 hp and 210 Nm.
The W202 was a rare car on the road even in 2014. Today only a very few are still alive. Quite recently, I met one of those. More on that car in a later story!
Black license plates were specially set up for overseas Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan enterprises in the last century, when such license plates could reduce import tariffs. This policy ended in October 2007 and vehicles with black plates can continue to be used as long as they are not scrapped.
A yellow sticker on the front windshield hints at the fate of the old Mercedes with black license plates, which could not continue on the road in Beijing in 2015 because of environmental standards. When replacing a new vehicle, the black license plate is recycled and the new car will use a blue regular license plate.
At present, there are still old cars with black license plates in Beijing, which must meet the China III emission standards, that is, there will be no old cars earlier than 2005.