STEPHEN BAYLEY

The Aesthete

Irecently had a Proustian moment. Not with a cake and a cup of tea, but with a shovel Workmen in my gardendug-upa1:43modelofthefull-sizeMercedesBenz W124 estate that my wife bought when our children were small I felt it was a safe car for them in London, the more so because we had a male nanny who hadbeenatankdriverintheSlovakianArmy,soVauxhall Bridge Road in rush hour held no fears for him

The W124 was a superb car, but my memory rushed me even further back in history, to its predecessor, the W123. A friend of mine who lived in Italy owned one AndIhavealso,àlarecherhedutempsperdu,accidentally rediscovered the notes I wrote about it more than 20 years ago I can exactly recall the blizzard of sound and orchestra of smoke that occurred on starting its ancient, clattering diesel for this W123 was by no means new ‘An exquisite pleasure invaded my senses, ’ Proust wrote for me to quote Originally shipped from Bremen in 1983, this Mercedes estate was acquired by my friend at about the sametimeashisTuscanfarmhouse

He had great affection for both But while one was fastidiously restored, the other was rather neglected, at least in the fussy sense Both house and car were settling nicely into the landscape There is pleasure to be had in ruins, either renovated or neglected

In his lovely little book Wabi-Sabi, Bay Area sage Leonard Koren defined the Japanese aesthetic as ‘the beauty of things imperfect, impermanent and incomplete’. This W123 was certainly incomplete because several vital components had been broken, stolen or lost and never replaced. But the magnificent Mercedeswasadjustingitselftodeclineinagentlemanly manner: it was like a rallentando of the life force, but much vital energy remained. When I drove it to meet my daughter at Chiusi station, she said: ‘Cool car ’ .

It was painted a shade of metallic green long since excluded from polite aesthetics. Upholstery was that peculiar Mercedes-Benz perforated vinyl of the period, coloured a disgusting dark brown probably called ‘tobacco’, but Proust would have recalled sewers. Erupting corrosion along the lower edge of the tailgate had been addressed with a strimmer borrowed from the neighbouring contadino. It was touched-up with a Ford paint because the local Mercedes spares people were in denial of the existence of such a bilious colour.

Perhaps in an effort to honour Daimler’s reputation for unworldly reliability, the W123’s diesel was reluctant ever to cease its explosive operations One cause was that the barrel of the steering column lock had lost most of its purchase on the key and removing it did not stop the engine Instead, you had to stall it, tricky where there is automatic transmission

There comes a time when vanity disappears from any relationship You know this when a man takes off his trousers before his socks and when a woman wears a shower cap With my friend’s W123, it was the rear foglights In 1983, rear fogs integrated into the light cluster were not common And cars stillhadwhatwerecalled‘bumpers’ from which little reflector-lights depended. Here, they had long since been taken out by a Tuscan stump and never replaced. And nowthatImentionit,isn’t‘bumper’ acuriousterm?Itseemstocondone mild aggression in a way that seems intolerable today.

But while careless about its particulars, my friend loved the generalities of his W123. Like the rot that affects grapes to make the finest sweet wine, there was something noble about this decaying car. It was the last Mercedes to retain an unselfconscious visual link to those from the years before 1939. And the type acquired the reputation of being the best Mercedes ever because it was built before themomentwhenthecurvesofmanufacturingexpertise and cost-benefit analysis diverged, never to merge again. It was the last car to be described as ‘executive’ without irony. So there’s another memory-rush for you.

In this morning’s newspaper there was an aerial photograph of new cars parked at the Nissan plant near Sunderland. Glossy, fine and momentarily perfect, they were awaiting 15 minutes of love from briefly infatuated owners. When they acquire some wabi-sabi, dents, scratches, signs of impermanence and imperfection, they will be unceremoniously sold into the secondary and tertiary markets before entering the circular economy to re-emerge, perhaps, as garden furniture.

I doubt any car made today will inspire more respect, affection – even love – than the W123 Estate. Was it great because it never broke down, or did it never break down because it was great? I suspect somewhere between Radicofani and Montefiridolfi, the old green Mercedes lives on.