MADMEN.
One of my good friends, Robert Guckenberger of Tampa Florida, was your proverbial "Mad Man" and the source of some of my Pagoda Inspiration. Mr. G loves that show.
Mr. G wrote some stories for his local Tampa Bay Newsletter, which I reprinted in our MBCA newsletter. Here's one:
In 1968, I was a 12 year old living in suburban New York, Long Island to be exact. One of my neighbors was a young Bob Guckenberger, who had a lovely wife Kathy, two little boys Bobby and Kenny, and lived just up the street. I used to baby-sit for his kids as they didn’t like “girl” babysitters—I was more fun, playing baseball with them. Mr. G as he was always known drove a series of Mercedes cars (part of the job!) which were quite rare in our working class neighborhood 40 years ago. He had a blue 250SL, followed by a red 280SL and then a 1971 250C. Not long after that, Mr. G moved his family to Florida to work on the Chris-Craft account, and we moved away from New York. Several years ago we reconnected. I found out he was once an active participant in the MBCA, and rejoined not too long ago. The old SL’s and 250C are long gone, being replaced by a CLK Cabriolet. The kids are grown up, but Mr. G still writes a little for the Tampa Bay Section, in short essays about his experiences with the Mercedes account at Ogilvy & Mather. Here’s the first in a series. –Michael Salemi
Smokin’ off the line in a 6.3
By Bob Guckenberger, Tampa Bay Section
When the 300SEL 6.3 came out in June of 1968, I was a copywriter on the Mercedes-Benz account at Ogilvy & Mather advertising in New York. Mercedes wanted an ad to introduce the car in the car buff magazines such as Car&Driver, Road&Track and others.
Before the 6.3, Mercedes sedans were never noted for their acceleration. But, they stuffed the big M100 engine from the 600 Pullman into the light bodied 280, and it was a screamer! My concept was a 6.3 on a drag strip smoking its tires with the headline “The last place you’d expect to find a Mercedes-Benz!”
We rented the Englishtown Dragstrip in New Jersey, picked up a 6.3 from Mercedes Corporate Headquarters in Montvale, and headed to off for the shoot the next day. Needless to say, we did a fair amount of impromptu drag racing with guys driving big block Chevys and Fords that afternoon and evening.
As we headed to the track, I picked up a gallon of bleach, as I heard it would really make the tires smoke (it did). The photographer snapped shots as the “Christmas Tree” turned green and I lit up the tires. We must have made 50 runs or more down the track to get the perfect shot. When we finished, I returned the car to Mercedes, feeling great about the ad and the photo session.
The next day, the Mercedes-Benz national sales manager called my boss, screaming. It seems we had put 500 miles on the car, wore out the tires and covered the rear fenders with molten rubber. Worst of all, this was a special order car that had already been sold! Seems I had failed to reveal to them we were going to drag the 6.3 on the photo shoot.
I did manage to keep my job, thank God.
