![]() It’s how the model’s super slippery aerodynamics and fuel sipping engines broke numerous speed and efficiency records sexier living through engineering. The cool thing about this showstopper isn’t just its Weibherbst paint color, which is German for “white autumn,” and also the same golden hue of a German rosé wine. That’s also where Mercedes-Benz shows off the C111, a wedge-shaped, gullwing door-equipped standout of which only 13 remain, all of which are owned by the carmaker. Once you’ve made it to Monterey, the commonplace falls away and almost every car in sight seems like an exceptional, handmade expression of joy that makes so-called regular cars seem banal. Which brings us to a warm afternoon in the SoCal suburb of Long Beach, where a million square-foot facility once owned and operated by Boeing is celebrating its debut as the Mercedes-Benz Classic Center. Call me indoctrinated, but experiences like those might help explain why I’m currently entangled in no fewer than three old school Benzes - one of which my wife absolutely hates - and have an even longer ownership history of the sometimes pesky, often endearing, needy-but-gratifying old rigs. I realized that I liked sampling the new stuff, but I loved driving the classics. That last bit was crucial: any carmaker could flaunt mass production, but few had over a century of lineage they could trace their modern cars back to.Īnd then, a funny thing happened on the flight back to LA. Ask me how I know.Įarly on in my auto writing career, I was invited by Mercedes-Benz on a so-called immersion trip to Stuttgart that included a tour of the factory, a peek at their infamous secret vault of historic cars (which housed everything from Princess Diana’s R129 convertible to a literal wall of priceless F1 racecars), and test drives of everything from fresh-to-death V12s to a selection of classics plucked straight out of the museum. The rickety, clackety three-wheeler was the first self-propelled automobile as we know it, a tidy fact the Mercedes-Benz PR department won’t let you forget any time soon. The only way to fully appreciate automobiles is to go way back to the very machine that started the whole shinding: the Benz Patent Motor Car.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |