In the image it lists the first digit as "Country of Origin" and lists the country as "DaimlerChrysler Corporation". It is my understanding that the DaimlerChrysler Corporation was never designated as a country.

Here is a description of what the first character (in this case a "1") stands for.

"The first character represents the country of manufacture, and can be a letter or a number, each signifying a different country. The most common ones are as follows:
(1 = USA, 2 = Canada, 3 = Mexico, J = Japan, K = Korea, W = Germany, Y = Finland, Sweden)"

Just looked up a "New Beetle" by Volkswagen. The first character "3" correctly identified the country of manufacture as Mexico Looked up a 2002 Pontiac Firebird and the first character was "2" for Canada, again correct.