The Good Old Days – Two Mercedes in One

The options and details on cars today seem minor compared to their predecessors.  What car company today offers custom bodies or even body choices like Rolls Royce, Mercedes, Duesenberg or even Ford did back in the early days?

How much nicer must it have been to go up to your car knowing it wasn’t one of five other same blue sedans in the parking lot?  Nowadays it is more about horsepower and less about design.  This is why I like the old cars better.  They are unique.  Some are truly special and others are just incomprehensible.

1915 Mercedes 28-60 HP Tourer Winter Body

1915 Mercedes 28-60 HP Tourer Summer Body Open Torpedo

Can you believe a winter body (closed) and a summer body (open)?  I mean it makes sense, rather than have two separate cars but wow.

I did a double take on the lawn at Pebble Beach, yes this is wood!  The car (chassis) was originally built as an open torpedo, but rebodied in 1917 at the factory converting it to a an open-front town car which is the winter body shown above.  It was not unusual for cars to have both bodies.  The tools for the change are stored in the bonnet.  Seriously, how cool is that?

In today’s vernacular this could almost be called “green.”  As there is much less of an environmental impact than having two actual cars.  Plus the wood should count for some type of LEED points.

Two bodies for one car, a little ladder to get up to your (it has to be) custom Louis Vuitton Damier luggage… I’m in heaven.  No fakes here.  Can you think of a better way to travel in style?