Memo to Mercedes: Miguel needs some help

Miguel Llorente in Cuba.
   Miguel Llorente, the young adventurer who tracked down a Mercedes-Benz Gullwing and other exotic cars in Cuba, has had a close call in Colombia.
   Miguel was driving his Mercedes 300TD wagon, "Livingstone," on a mountain road when a truck rounded a corner in his lane. He swerved and his right wheels dropped into a concrete drainage channel. Then the beige wagon was slewing back across the roadway into a Kenworth 18-wheeler and down into a ditch, coming to rest on its roof atop a rainwater reservoir.
   Passersby pulled Miguel from the car and waited with him for an ambulance. After a short stay in hospital he still has back pain, but amazingly, he didn't break any bones or suffer other serious injuries.
   Livingstone? Not so lucky. The 30-year-old Mercedes in which Miguel set out from Kansas months ago is a mangled mess. Its inner structure held, however, and he credits that safety cage for saving him.
   The accident hasn't taken away our intrepid traveller's keen powers of observation, or his zest for writing. On his This European Life blog, he offers a compelling account of that day's events, telling us, for instance, about the Kenworth driver whose own quick yank of the wheel prevented a head-on collision that would have been worse yet, and who waited outside the hospital to know that Miguel was all right.
   But without money to replace Livingstone, Miguel fears his PanAm expedition may have reached an early end. He has approached Mercedes-Benz, hoping the manufacturer can somehow help him resume his trek to the tip of Argentina. Anything with a diesel under the hood and a three-pointed star above should do this good friend of the marque just fine.



See also:


 Gullwing and a prayer

 The young man and the 300SL

 Watch it and weep

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Discovered in Cuba, a rare Mercedes bird

Image
(December 2012 note: See update link, below.)     GUESS I'LL have to set aside my search for the younger Batista’s 1956 Corvette. An even tastier trophy has emerged – a Mercedes-Benz 300SL, better known as the Gullwing.    Even on the Island of Surprises, I’d be astounded to come across one of these rare beauties. But in a brief section on Cuba in Automobiles Lost & Found (Haynes Publishing, 2008), I see a photo of a battered 300SL observed by author Michael E. Ware outside a private garage near Havana.    The Gullwing, unmistakable lift-up doors in place, is dented and rusting and missing its engine, yet still would be prized by collectors the world over . . . if only they could extract it from Cuba. Restored, the Silver Metallic example with Lipstick Red interior might be worth more than $700,000 U.S.    Reached in England, Mr. Ware tells me he was holidaying in Cuba when an acquaintance brought him to an unnamed community to see the car.    “I never asked whe
Read more

The Cuba Gullwing chronology

Image
How the 300SL would have looked new. Wikipedia photo.     IN SIX YEARS , no topic here has drawn more attention than the story of Cuba's rotting Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing Coupe. Visitors from around the world seem endlessly appalled and fascinated by the sad fate of such a rare and beautiful car.      The same analytics program that tells me the home nations of these visitors tells me where on this blog they land – and it's apparent that many are missing the full story (or as full as anyone has been able to make it). The world's largest Internet indexer – you know who I'm talking about – insists on routing the curious to a five-year post and refuses to make note of subsequent entries.    Why? Who knows?     To provide a more complete picture, here's a list of CARISTAS entries on the Gullwing, which, to be clear, was first brought to the world's attention by British auto historian Michael E. Ware in Automobiles Lost & Found (Haynes Publishing, 20
Read more