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45 AutoData | March 2019 F ebruary 17, 1999, was an unforgetta- ble milestone for Mercedes-Benz do Brasil: at 2 o’clock in the afternoon, a redA-class 160 Elegance came out of the assembly line in Juiz de Fora, MG, its first automobile produced in Brazil. The factory, the first for M-B cars built outside Germany, an investment of US$ 400 million, was then considered the most modern in the world: it applied its just- -in-time and just-in-sequence systems, with nine systems suppliers installed in or around the unit. The commercial failure of the model was a strong hit to the unit, which experien- ced moments of tension: while the project to produce the Smart there failed, it produ- ced a small volume of the C-Class model to export. Mercedes-Benz negotiatedwith at least one high-volume automaker to sell the factory, but in 2010 the company decided to convert the plant into a truck- -producing unit, spending another US$ 450 million for that: the new home of Ac- celo and Actros. Today, the factory concentrates the welding and painting operations concer- ning all cabins of Mercedes-Benz trucks produced in Brazil. Acervo MIAU Museu da Imprensa Automotiva