Although my Europa S1 project is currently on hold I pick up missing parts from time to time when I stumble across them. The right wing mirror went missing a long time ago. On the left side a Talbot mirror is mounted.
During the fifties and sixties most of the sports cars were delivered by the factories without external mirrors. It was up to the customer or dealer to mount an aftermarket mirror. One well known manufacturer of such mirrors was Talbot in Berlin. A few cars were even equipped with Talbot mirrors from new such as Mercedes 300 SL or some Porsches.
About a year ago one such mirror popped up on Ebay which I bought. I was very disappointed when I discovered that it was bigger than the exiting one on my car.
The seller agreed to return the mirror. It turned out that he is a Talbot mirror collector and that the smaller version of the Talbot 300 (called 'Junior') is very rare. He promised to to try to find one for me.
Now some weeks ago he contacted me again that he had found one including a set of blue tinted glasses. I did not hesitate to buy the mirror as I've only found other offers on the net for ridiculous money. On the picture he sent me I noticd a difference in the manufacturer stamping mark. Mine showed 'TALBOT & Co - BERLIN -' but the new one read 'talbot + Co - W-Berlin -'
The seller assured that the mirrors are absolutely identical except that the mirror on my car was manufactured before the Berlin wall was put up. The one he was offering was built after it as indicated by the 'W(est)'-prefixed Berlin. So my car had been equipped with pre-1962 mirrors when it was sold new by B.M.C.D. in California in 1967.
To mount the mirror I just has to reopen the lazily plastered holes. I'm quite happy with the result.
Klaus
