i spotted this mercedes W144 bodied sedan prowling the tokyo streets in shibuya. “Happy Christmas!” as they say here in japan.

continuing my journey from stockholm to amsterdam, i entered danish road-space and spied this majestic old mercedes-benz ponton sedan. this shot was taken about 60 kilometers prior to embarking on the ferry which carried me into german road-space. an interesting thing about denmark is the tax on a vehicle is 100% of the purchase price….. a real discouragement to car ownership. on the bright side, denmark has the best modern bridge designs my weary eyes have ever seen.

i spent a couple of days in berlin recently and spied this un-identified mercedes van. subsequent attempts to discover the model and year of production of this specimen proved fruitless. any sleuths are welcome to comment and enlighten us with any knowledge below. for some reason this van reminds me of the david bowie song Panic-In-Detroit: “looked a lot like che guevara, drove a diesel van, kept his gun in quiet seclusion, such a humble man. the only survivor of the national people’s gang”

i often wonder why mercedes-benz and other european car manufacturers refuse to allow their full lines to be offered in the united states. is it because they think we are too stupid? or do they feel the MB brand is so heavily associated with “luxury” in the u.s. that if they imported the ‘A-Class’ it would water down that appeal ? lets get the USA in tune with the rest of the world and offer most if not all versions of cars each european manufacturer makes. volkswagen is a good example…. they are afraid to offer the new scirocco which is absolutely ridiculous…. that car is amazing and would sell like hot-cakes in the usa. speaking of VW, they completely mis-manage the usa market by not offering the transporter and the scirocco.

this shot is ostensibly of the new camaro in the lane ahead, though it is also a nice shot of the nether-regions of my 1970 mercedes 280se. the new camaro is a very well executed design and the quality seems good, though i notice that american and japanese cars seem nice when they are new, but after a few years the designs look crude and the cars themselves are falling apart. contrast this with my 1970 mercedes which is about 40 years old and still looks and drives new…. the fact that the design has stood the test of time is really just the ‘icing-on-the-gravy’.

one of the more esoteric qualities of shooting moving subjects exclusively with the iphone is that interesting distortion is produced under certain conditions. this passing mercedes benz 450sl was captured in a fleeting moment and the surreal depiction appears as a one dimensional card board cut-out….. yet in actuality it is steel, rubber, glass and man.

The 190SL was also referred to as the ‘Nitribitt-Mercedes’ after the scandal surrounding the murder of call girl Rosemarie Nitribitt. Nitribitt succeeded in getting male attention and acquired a stock of posh society clients. She became very wealthy rather quickly, which she demonstrated by buying a black Mercedes 190 SL with red leather upholstery in 1956 and drove it around Frankfurt to solicit customers. in November 1957 she was found dead in her apartment in Frankfurt, her body showing signs of strangulation and a head wound. She was interred at the Nordfriedhof Düsseldorf….. Her head, however, was kept as evidence in police custody and later exhibited in the Kriminal-Museum in Frankfurt; it was eventually buried in February, 2008.

driving in the lane astride it, i was struck by this car’s pristine condition. the shape of the mercedes SL of this era has always been a favorite, and so impressed by this particular specimen i felt compelled to risk life and limb to recklessly snap a photo whilst traveling at 60 mph. this photo became the impetus to create the “cars i have seen” site.