Picture Her Rolling

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Monday, January 28th, 2013

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Picture Her Rolling

Not too soon, right?

Yes, Benzitos, it turns out that Princess Diana was a 500 Benz fan just like us...and when she went public with her affection, trading her Jaguar XJS for a 1992 Mercedes-Benz 500SL, a Buckingham Palace brouhaha ensued.

Jaguars, you see, are manufactured in England, and Mercedes are not, so it wasn't the best move from a PR perspective. But such is the allure of the 500 Benz, whose 5.0-liter V8 incidentally made 27 more horsepower and about 50 more pound-feet of torque than the XJS's 5.3-liter V12.

Princess Di selected a sensual dark red 500SL with a tan interior. According to The New York Times, she was "the first member of the royal family in memory to use a foreign car."

The Times continues:

Members of Parliament and union leaders said the Princess, who is 30 years old, should have stuck with her British-made Jaguar....

"This decision by the Princess is at best insensitive and at worst deeply unpatriotic," said Jimmy Airlie, a negotiator with an engineering union.

Notably, your humble narrator was also 30 years old when he fell for the 500 Benz.

Unfortunately for the Princess's motoring pleasure, she ultimately bowed to the barrage of criticism, returning her leased 500SL to Mercedes later that same year.

The car now resides at the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart, where an intrepid Irishman called Stephen Hanafin snapped the following photo:

In possibly related news, Diana's son William seems determined to be a good automotive nationalist, as he and Kate conspicuously chose an Aston Martin for their wedding-day transportation:

Don't tell JRiz, but that googly-eyed fishface can't hold a candle to Princess Di's badass Benz.

posted in: Random R129 Stuff

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