I think I can answer these questions gentlemen, sorry I'm a bit late but I've only very recently joined this forum set-up!
I was a very young Hardinge, Exeter, Devon, UK apprentice when, around 1968, our UK works manager, Jim Blair, called a works meeting to say that we had just been granted a manufacturing order by our American bosses in Elmira, USA to manufacture an initial 300 DV59 lathe "top halves".
This meant 300 bed, headstock, tailstock and compound slide units initially, with more to follow if all went well.
Our works began manufacture and a number of these units were completed, checked against the spec sheets and sent to USA where further inspection was obviously carried out. Now, I was not involved in the manufacture of these DV59 top halves, and I have no idea how many were sent Stateside, but I do know that our machines were slated by Hardinge USA inspectors - minor stuff such as a washer on a compound slide was fitted upside down, and the complete top half assembly would get rejected (I don't know whether they were then returned to UK?) Someone said these units were being sold via adverts in America for spares or part built machines, and that as they were built in the UK they were taking away work from American Hardinge factories, so they would be looking for reasons to reject our stuff. The total order was then cancelled and we were left with all the DV parts, but this was not a machine we normally built in Exeter.
All I do know is that sometime later when I began specialising to become a fitter, I was designated to use up the spare parts by taking over from a skilled man who was leaving (he had made the top half units for America) and was at the time building part complete machines to send to Feltham, Middlesex, UK for completion, if they were to become DSM59's for UK customers.
From there onwards, using the left over parts, I manufactured about 340 machines as DV59s, DSM59s, B&S spindled DSM59 (DSM-59-BS), DSM Hot Rods (DSM-59-HR). In the years between it is entirely possible that UK built DV/DSM59s ended up being bolted onto an American built pedestal and sold as an American built machine.
Respectfully, Barry (now aged nearly 71yrs).