When Mercedes Roamed the Earth

As a fan of Mercedes-Benz, cars in general, and a huge movie buff, it is not often that I get to see or interact with something that involves a combination of the three. That being said, this past June I had a chance to visit the Birmingham, Alabama Mercedes Benz production facility for work (yes I do actually have a day job!), and while there we got to visit the Mercedes Benz museum they have on site. Among the many very cool and very rare vehicles they have on display there was a locked room that, as an employee of Mercedes Benz (dealership), we were given access to. As we walked through the now unlocked door we were greeted with a small room filled with four or five cars, all under covers. Among them were the first-off-the-line 163 chassis ML350, the concept ML that toured the show circuit, at all the way at the front of the line was a very weird looking camo painted SUV.

My eyes went immediately to this particular vehicle. Not because of how eat it looked with its camo paint job or its weird selection of accessories attached to the outside, but because it looked familiar to me. I had definitely laid eyes upon this vehicle before but for the life of me I couldn't figure out where. That was until I walked around the front of it and saw the large stuffed Velociraptor that was laying down in the back seat. Then it dawned on me! This was one of the movie props from Lost World: Jurassic Park! How freaking cool is that!?

I was able to snap a few pictures before our tour moved on and I would like to share them with you now.



If you look in the background of this picture you can see the uncovered front passenger side of the first ever Mercedes Benz ML350 to roll off of the assembly line. That black markings all over it are the signatures of every employee who worked at the plant.The Birmingham plant was opened in the US specifically for the production of these vehicles and this was the first vehicle produced here.



So how cool is this? For someone like myself who loves theses cars, and loved the Jurassic Park movies, this was my happy place!