As is always the case when we post a video from website Petrolicious, we have to fight ourselves from making this a post about Petrolicious instead of the actual vehicle featured. Therefore, insert effusive remarks about: the cinematography, blocking, framing, lighting, camerawork, typography, jazz, etc., etc., etc. Petrolicious makes beautiful videos like movie stars make beautiful babies. Just take our word for it that you should plug in your headphones, curl up with a nice mug of something warm, and enjoy.
With that shameless adulation out of the way, let us state the actual point of this post: Mercedes-Benz’ build quality has some incredible moments. In this case, a German man whom we are quite curious about talks to Petrolicious of the 1972 Mercedes-Benz 280S/8 that is his daily driver. His name is Bernard Bredehorn, by the way.
For those of y’all who love math, you’ll be ecstatic about this next part: 1972 was 43 years ago. The average age of a car on the road in the U.S. is 11.4 years (at least as of summer 2014). That means we basically get 25 percent of the way to Bredehorn’s car’s age, and say, “Well, this is too old and we don’t want to worry about expensive repairs. This car has reached its age limit and we’re sending it to the scrap yard.”
Bredehorn’s Mercedes-Benz isn’t some sort of super-rare, ultra-expensive model. It’s just an example of the ridiculously high level of build quality that occurred at that time. It has four times the lifespan of one of our average cars, and it could easily last five or six times as long.
Want to hear the crazy part? The engine, transmission and axles are all the originals. Nothing has broken down and they’ve never needed to be replaced. That gives Bredehorn the confidence to not see his 280S/8 as a weekend car, but a daily driver.
To check out a Mercedes-Benz for sale in Raleigh, stop by our showroom.