it's because they like Few-Her cars

Dear Hasbeen,

Now you're making me drool!

I love the old "classics."

Cars and men alike! :-)

Lexi,

You'll turn Hasbeen's head if you keep that up: )

Just remembered something about Mercedes when I was car-washing. I operated a huge machine that had nine buttons (all in Italian) that needed to be pressed in the right order and held down in irregular patterns while the brushes swept over the cars. Sometimes we had to hold brushes up and away if there were immovable parts on the car that would be ripped off when the brushes did their thing.

I remember with the Mercedes that I was taught early on to grab the emblem, which was attached by something like fishing line, pull it up and twist if so that it was turned sideways - making it less of an obstacle for the brush to rip off.....very intricate expertise needed for car washing : )

I'll just add that we had the odd Jag as well - they were my favourite.

Dear Poirot,

Me turn Hasbeen's head?
Not a chance.
He's a sailor (vagabond) afterall.

All I can do is drool over his lifestyle,
and collection of "classics."

Simple.

>>Does anyone know the reason as to why so many ordinary people own Mercedes Benz cars?<<

Because it is a very ordinary car.

I well recall being surprised in the mid-to-late sixties (exact dates tend to get all gets blurry at this distance) when I found that every single taxi in Lisbon was a Mercedes.

Until that moment I had thought Mercs a tad exotic - from memory, I drove a Ford Popular at the time - but seeing them squeezing their way through hot-and-arid Alfama, covered in grime and dust, put them for me firmly into the "reliable workhorse" category.

I can only assume their slightly up-market image these days to be a triumph of marketing savvy over consumer experience. Heck, these days those slick spruikers even manage to sell Volvos to people younger than ninety, so selling Mercs to the chaps at the golf club would have been a breeze.

Reminds me, Pericles, that the bus fleet where I live was (and perhaps still is) pretty much all Mercedes.