Somebody else was digging into his family history and found a photo of his grandfather as a driver.
The licence plate led him to Farwerck, found this website and he contacted me. Thanks to historic archives, we therefor have a photo of Farwerck’s car!
The number on the left is “5484”. The image comes from the archives of South Holland, which -at the time- had licence plates starting with a G. Great find! The registration was made on 9 September 1914. At the time, a license plate was registered, not a car, so Farwerck kept his plate when he bought other cars. The car can’t be from 1914. It appears to be a Mercedes Benz Typ Nürburg Cabriolet D (W08) (1)
A model which has been produced between 1928 and 1934.
Or perhaps a somewhat earlier model:
It must have been huge and expensive car when I see what models Mercedes had in these days.
For some reason the address has been edited from Emmastraat 58 to 60. All the way to the right it seems to say: “duplicate 29/6-’49”. Perhaps that refers to the initial registration of Franz’ first car. I haven’t been able to find that record.
The chauffeur is Simon Weisz (1889-1981) who was Farwerck’s driver at the time. Weisz seems to have moved to the Netherlands around 1920.
The person who found the photo wanted to know who the couple in the back is. A logical reply would be: Willy and Johanna Farwerck.
Could be. I threw the photo through free online photo compare software and for Willy there was 72% chance that both portray the same man, for Johanna only 43%. Seeing that the car was on Franz’ name and the fact that Franz and Willy spent a lot of time together, this is the most likely couple to be in the back of Farwerck’s car. Perhaps Franz was even the photographer.
The car was probably bought before the passing of senior who passed away in 1930. Like the house, the businesses, the car may have been a shared family asset. The couple being Willy and Johanna is more likely. Or -of course- perhaps Franz lent out his car to other people he knew.
In any case, a very expensive car driving around with a licence registered to Franz Farwerck.
(1) https://www.autoevolution.com/cars/mercedes-benz-typ-nurburg-cabriolet-d-w08-1928.html (accessed 26/8/2024)