BUSINESS ABROAD: The Solid Gold Mercedes

Next to Marlene Dietrich, Germany’s most ageless export is the fast, shapely Mercedes-Benz, whose three-pointed-star symbol has long been associated with riches and beauty. To the world’s auto connoisseurs, the Mercedes offers not only superb craftsmanship and loving attention to detail, but conservative styling that has not basically changed since the 1930s. But even the grand old lady of the auto world (Stuttgart’s proud Daimler-Benz, Mercedes’ maker, claims to be the world’s oldest auto producer) occasionally indulges in a bit of sprucing up. Last week Daimler-Benz showed off its new Mercedes models.

Sleek, solid-colored and almost chromeless, the new cars held few surprises—but some bonuses—for Mercedes fans. The lower-priced 180 models ($3,300 to $3,567 in New York) and the luxurious 300 SL Roadster ($10,978) were basically unchanged. But Mercedes’ new 220 series of six-cylinder sedans, the most popular in the line, appeared in a sleeker new version, with a redesigned engine that boosts power output to a top of 134 h.p. The medium-priced 220 ($4,767 with fuel injection) has a somewhat lower, slightly streamlined body that keeps the unmistakable Mercedes look, a slight suggestion of tail fins, new and larger wrap-around windows (35% more glass), a lower, broader radiator grille, and 50% more luggage space.

Stock Sensation. While many eyes are set on the European small car and its new U.S. competitors, Daimler-Benz is out to grab a heftier share of the big-car market. The U.S. already buys 10% of its production, and its U.S. sales are racing 160% ahead of last year, are expected to top 15,000 cars by year’s end. With 54% of its production going to 136 countries, Daimler-Benz has hiked worldwide sales 16% this year, expects to run up a 1959 sales figure of $600 million for the best year in its history.

To keep up with the demand, Daimler-Benz has 83.000 employees working in seven German plants, plants in Argentina, Brazil and India, assembly lines in Mexico, South Africa, Belgium, Ireland. Together, they are striving to shrink the company’s order backlog of 82,000 cars and trucks, equal to six months’ top production. As a result. Daimler-Benz stock is one of the greatest sensations on West Germany’s booming stock market. A blue chip by nature, it is also the market’s star riser, has gone up 400% in the past year, and last week alone jumped 10% to hit $800 a share.

Fourth Biggest. The man in Mercedes’ driver’s seat is foxy Friedrich Flick, 75, a convicted war criminal who lost 80% of his steel fortune at war’s end, bought a 37½% interest in Daimler-Benz between 1954 and 1957. Flick has driven Mercedes so fast and furiously that his stock has risen in value from $20 million to $200 million, and he has rocketed back to become Germany’s No. 2 industrialist (after Alfried Krupp). Seeking a smaller car for the Mercedes line, Flick had Daimler buy 88% of the competing Auto Union company, which puts out the D.K.W. buggy (Manhattan price: $1,995). Counting Auto Union’s sales of $120 million yearly, Flick’s Daimler complex now ranks as the world’s fifth-biggest automaker (after the U.S. Big Three and American Motors).

European automen are sure that Flick yearns to grow still bigger. They buzz that he is working toward a merger with a major French or Italian automaker to dominate the car industry in the European Common Market. He has had Daimler buy preferred shares that can be converted into 5% of Studebaker-Packard Corp., his U.S. distributor. But a key factor in Daimler-Benz’s plans will be the effect of the new U.S. compact cars on Mercedes’ vital U.S. sales. Daimler-Benz is less worried than most other European car makers. Says President Fritz Konecke: “Our appeal is to a different kind of customer.”