Current LGB Specialty Items
Coca-Cola Car
The car # 4072 got manufactured due to an order by American LGB importer Cimarron Ltd. and was shipped to the USA only, in a volume of 2,000 units. Even though the car was manufactured in 1984 it is (still) of interest (to us) since delivery to the United States dealers was delayed due to licensing problems with the Coca Cola labeling; then some time passed until the car found its way back to Germany.
The car box is red with white labeling, the roof including the vents are in silver - just like a coke can! All in all the car is a gem and its coloring makes for a fine standout in every US- freight train.
FYI I like to add that the Coca-Cola car will be just the first in a whole series of advertising cars by big companies. The hint is in the labeling on the box :CIM I/1985" Let's wait and see if there will be a "CIM II/1985"!
(Y.T.: Mr. Neumann was on to something. LGB couldn't wait to manufacture more of the same car and just change the labeling, manufacturing always the same volume of 3,000 units per car thus making it a 'limited edition'. In 1988/89 alone these cars were made and delivered: # 4073-CO3 Denver-Rio Grande Western, #4074-BO2 "Tiffany", # 4074-Z02 "Schlitz" and the extreme specialty # 4074 MD for McDonald's in Buena Park/CA which was shown either in Disney Park or Knott's Berry Farms at the McDonald's restaurant. Only 20(!) cars were manufactured, solely for McDonald's. All those cars were for the US market only. But with re-import they found their way back to Germany and started a US-car craze among German LGB collectors.)
Wuerttenberger Car
"Hobby Eberhardt" Co. in Heilbronn (near Stuttgart) known to collectors through the specialty beer car "Cluss" Brewery, including a beer bottle, came out with a limited low-volume-production of 100 each; the specialty car is dedicated to Wuerttemberger wines. On the silver colored car it reads " Connoisseurs drink Wuerttemberger), Oh well, this wine can use all the help it can get right now, why not even from an LGB specialty car??
(Y.T. In 1985 all of Germany and Austria was rocked and shocked by the Glycol wine scandal. Vintners in Austria had adulterated wine by adding glycol to make it sweeter while pretending to serve/sell aged wine. I quote Wikipedia here: "
Many of these Austrian wines were exported to Germany, some of them in bulk to be bottled at large-scale German bottling facilities. At these facilities, some Austrian wines were illegally blended into German wines by the importers, resulting in diethylene glycol ending up in some bulk-bottled German wines as well.
The scandal was uncovered by German wine laboratories performing quality controls on wines sold in Germany, and immediately made headlines around the world. The affected wines were immediately withdrawn from the market. A number of people involved in the scandal were sentenced to prison or heavy fines in Austria and Germany.
The short-term effect of the scandal was a complete collapse of Austrian wine exports and a total loss of reputation of the entire Austrian wine industry, with significant adverse effects on the reputation of German wines as well. The long-term effect was that the Austrian wine industry focused their production on other wine types than previously, primarily dry white wines instead of sweet wines, and increasingly targeted a higher market segment, but it took the Austrian wine industry over a decade to recover. Much stricter wine laws were also enacted by Austria.)"
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