Here we have an extremely beautiful W210 Mercedes-Benz E-Class sedan, seen in June 2016 at the parking lot of a shopping mall in the far east of Beijing. The Mercedes has diplomatic license plates and belongs to the Embassy of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).
The W210 Mercedes-Benz E-Class sedan was manufactured from 1995 until 2003. The W210 introduced a new design language for the E-Class, with a four-headlight front, flanking a relatively small shiny grille.
In the old system, diplomatic license plates in the capital Beijing started with the character 使 (shi) in red, short for 大使馆 dashiguan, meaning embassy. Each embassy has its own 3-digit number. In this case, the number is 133, which stands for North Korea.
The next three digits are the car’s number. The ambassador’s official car is always 001, but there are no specific rules for the other numbers, and plates may be carried over from car to car. Our Mercedes has car number 115, which means that the license plate, when it was issued, was for the 115th car used by the North Korean embassy. This embassy is located in the Sanlitun embassy district in central Beijing.
The current diplomatic license plates look different; the character 使 has moved to the end of the license plate.
It is well-known that the North Korean regime likes cars made by Mercedes-Benz. However, in the early 2000s, many embassies in Beijing used the W210 as the official car. That included the Dutch embassy, where I worked at that time.
The interior was almost as well preserved as the exterior. The black leather looks slightly worn, but the wood looks very good. The embassy added a mobile phone holder on the left side of the center stack and a pink device of unknown functionality on the air vents. The radio is an after-market unit.
The W210 was available with many diesel- and petrol engines. Sadly, there was no engine badge on this car so I can’t be sure what was under the hood.
Diesels are not allowed in Beijing, not even for diplomatic cars, so we can rule those out. Considering trim and luxury, it seems this car is an E 280, powered by an inline-6 with 190 hp and 270 Nm. The motor was mated to a five-speed automatic, sending all horses to the rear wheels.
Note the Pepper Lunch text on the building in the background, on the left. Pepper Lunch is a Japanese chain of high end fast-food restaurant, serving large portions of meat on a sizzling plate! I loved it. The chain mainly operates in Asia, with China being its second-largest market after Japan. Earlier, I met a Lamborgini Gallardo at the same place. Sadly, this particular restaurant is no longer there, it closed during Covid and didn’t return. As for the Mercedes, well, I have never seen it anymore, so the car was probably sold or shipped back to North Korea. Let’s hope it still looks as good as it did in 2016!