"Fair enough, fair enough. Well, let's have a look at the 'big's' famous owners. They are..." "Is Max Mosley on that list?" "No, it's worse! Look: Amin Brezhnev Ceaucescu Tito Hoxha Hussein Castro Klerk Hirohito Pot Tung And Elvis Presley..."
Mercedes Benz had at the 1960 and 1970 years a building quality which was unmatched by any rival - it was pure excellence: 10 workers had one supervisor on the line. You can see this with the old W109/109/110/115 - still great machines.
I once got the opportunity to sit in a 600. I immediately noticed that this was NOT a car intended for the owner to drive it. It was intended for a SERVANT to drive. The short drivers seat was not close to the luxurious rest of the car.
The 600 was a "chauffeurs limousine" not intended to be driven by the owner / user. If you wanted to drive yourself the 300SEL 6.3 was the Mercedes to go for after 1967 until 1972. Closely followed in 1975 by the 450 SEL 6.9 ... 🙂
Rowan Atkinson bought one of this, it was when he realized that his passion for car was out of control, he said he drove 50 yards and felt "such a prat". rofl Look up "The Driven Man" a great documentary/autobiography by Rowan Atkinson
The 600 is a certified late 20th century nonaligned movement classic. I'd love to hear about West Germany's relationship with the third world, how & why the car was exported etc., rather than just listing states that were rocking the Benz.
Intergalactic Binman spoke about that in a video that involved this car. He did it together with HardThrasher. Its called "Top 10 Most Evil Cars Of All Time (Kind Of)"
@@EmyrDerfel yeah some of them were acquired secondhand. Berlusconi, Mugabe, Mubarak, and anyone else who took power after 1980 for example. All the other heads of state mentioned experienced a phase of productive diplomatic relations and/or outright material support from West Germany during the 600's production life. Good question. Pahlavi had a really large collection of cars, including a couple of custom 600s. Part of his fleet was auctioned to international bidders immediately after the revolution, and the rest are stored and maintained by volunteers at the National Auto Museum in Tehran
Coco Chanel had two one in Paris and one in the states This rare example of Mercedes-Benz's luxury flagship was owned from May 1999 into the early 2000s by Jamiroquai front man, and noted car connoisseur and collector, Jay Kay. One of the shorter wheelbase models, the car was delivered new to Ets Royal Élysées of Paris, France, and is to have been owned by Coco Chanel. Jay Kay commented in an old interview: "A fantastic car! And it's even Coco Chanel's old car."
none of the cars shown, when talking about the W 189, IS in fact a W 189. Just to make sure. They are all W 120 or W 121's. The pope is also not riding a W100 in this picture. The only 4-door Landaulet was built for someone else.
4 месяца назад
I saw Sly of The Family Stone fame's grey Mercedes-Benz Pullman in the Oceanview district of San Francisco circa 1970. It was a standout luxury vehicle !.
The Mercedes 600 is clearly one of the most notorious cars of all time. Yet, Rockstar Games cannot gain licence for brands of cars for the GTA series. Funny old world.
I fell in love with this model with the first one I saw in 1971/2 which was the chosen vehicle for the King of Malaysia. The partition between the driver and passengers in the LWB model means the room for the driver is compromised. At 6'6- 198 cm- this will make one of these gorgeous vehicles a little cramped. I still want one. The only REAL colour to have is black. It will sit in the garage with my red "pagoda" 280SL.
4 месяца назад
The Maybach is back !! Aa d a very beautiful car !!!
Not mentioned is WHY it became so associated with dictators; it was the Cold War, for a head of state of a newly-independent nation it was an "unaligned" choice when a Rolls-Royce was so strongly associated with the old colonial power Britain and a Cadillac with the rising American hegemony, while Soviet limos and Tatras were only even available to governments already under Moscow's sphere. (Brezhnev is a special case, he used a ZIL for state duties of course but was a car collector, he also had a Cadillac Eldorado among others most of which were "gifts" from other foreign leaders).
Looking forward to you uploading on weekends,always highest quality Infotainment , but todays episode was especially near and dear to my heart. Thanks alot for this channel!!
W100 is not a code, it is a number. W means Wagen, hence car, and 100 is the number given to the design. And the engine was the M100, Motor, engine, design number 100. Pullman was a body designer and Pullmans were always the stretched versions.
"Fair enough, fair enough. Well, let's have a look at the 'big's' famous owners. They are..." "Is Max Mosley on that list?" "No, it's worse! Look: Amin Brezhnev Ceaucescu Tito Hoxha Hussein Castro Klerk Hirohito Pot Tung And Elvis Presley..."
Does anyone know what happened to the one the IDF flew in to Entebbe in July 76 to distract the airport guards during the raid to rescue hostages? The subterfuge wasn’t as successful as intended because 2 weeks earlier Amin had swapped out his black one for a new white one.
Most likely written by an enthusiastic american. The Continental is a nice looking but cramped box with too much room wasted, drum brakes and life rear axle. Neighbors had a Gen.4 (1963 model I think) in the mid-1960s and if you don't pay attention while getting in you hit your head on the roof or arms on the door pillars. Technically it is based on the 1958 Thunderbird and shares many components with it, but doesn't even come close to a Rolls Royce nor a 600. It's only plus was a slightly bigger engine with 7 liters and 324 (SAE) hp.
Whoa I'm surprised to learn that B.J. Habibie also own a Grosser! I do remember reading awhile ago that Habibie also own another Mercedes with an interesting backstory, a Gullwing (I think it's a 300SL). It is said in the 80s, some university students found a broken Gullwing deep in the jungle of Jambi (some goes as far as saying that the Gullwing is hanging on a tree) but they and the locals weren't sure about what car is that (or even if that is a car at all, as the unique design of the Gullwing makes some of them think that it is an UFO). Upon hearing this news, Habibie inspect the findings and knew that it was an old precious mercedes Gullwing, but as for why that Gullwing ends up in the jungle in the first place no one is 100% sure about that. The speculation is that some local kingdom family members left that Gullwing in the jungle to hide them from capture during a war. Habibie then ordered the car to be brought back to Jakarta to be restored. The process was quite hard as spare parts had to be ordered from Germany and even then Merc hadn't produce that Gullwing for awhile so there are parts that had to be recreated or modified from their available cars at the time, making his Gullwing a special frankenstein one. I think the car is on display on a museum now. Unlike some names mentioned here, Habibie wasn't a dictator tho, he was a nice and smart but unlucky guy that served for a long time under Suharto (which is the actual dictator). I guess his time studying in Germany gave him good taste of great German cars :D
4 месяца назад
It IS a very stylish car after all - unlike modern Mercs!
Great vlog as always! It would be quicker to mention the nations that did not have this awesome limo. Lol! Scandinavia, France, Greece, Canada and the US.
Not a car to buy & restore unless you have wads & wads & wads of money. I think Ringo owned one which he would park outside Abbey Rd Studios alongside John's RR (presumably taking up much of the car park)
Speaking of B.J. Habibie. I have just found out that he also owned 300SL Gullwing that is unique among other Gullwing, that it's a restored Gullwing using the chassis of W124 coupe. Resulting in a more beefy outlook
In Turkiye 600 was the presidential vehicle like the others but utilised with many different presidents while she was in use, not only one president in contrast to many other 600s.
4 месяца назад
The Maybach is back as a sedan , convertible , and SUV !.
Given a choice of getting a Mercedes 600 or a heroin habit, I think the latter is likely to lead to a much more favourable outcome. It is the ultimate in car dependency, if you get one of these steel boxes then your fate is sealed. Driving one of these is like asking the rest of the world to shoot you by firing squad. Might as well get a hearse.
"You're either going to kill millions of people, or you're going to die on the bog trying to get 50 million cheeseburgers out of your poo chute." James May on 600 Grosser owners.
But yet, the story is not complete. In 2015, Mercedes-Benz revived the Maybach name for special versions of the W222 generation S-Class sedan between 2015 and 2021. And now, the Maybach name is on a higher-end luxury version of the EQS SUV electric vehicle, known as the Maybach EQS680. In short, the legacy of the original M-B 600 model is still hanging around.
Global recession always sound so much like a lame excuse to change stuff to the worse. Stop worrying about recessions and just do your jobs. Fact: Since every single recession, afterwards the cars were less economic, more expensive and built worse than before. Recession is just an excuse.
The 600 kept its 1960s look until the end, looking rather old fashioned against the S class of the 1970s. It seems like the customers were fine with this conservative design language.
Hey.... I LOVE Mercedes Benz! I wanted to move to Germany after I became a mechanical engineer and work on them. But I chose history. And now that I’m 18 & new to history or newly found the love of history. I asked my grandfather about this but he gave me an explanation I don’t think I can repeat.... Why do people throughout history give J€w$ a hard time? And do they deserve it?
