There is a historic background to this model. In the 1930s a big Marklin Dealer from New York ordered a handfull of I-gauge Marklin crocs in Germany. Those tin plate models were white and lettered for NYC. The originals are legendary and extremely rare models. For this year (150th anniversary of Marklin) they decided to do another run of NYC-crocodiles using the modern molds, as a memory to the white pre-war ones.
The 2009 limited edition was sold out within a very short period of time!