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Is Hitler's Car Currently Cruising New Jersey?
By
Garth Johnston
Published Jul 9, 2012
Modified Jul 9, 2012
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By
Garth Johnston
Published Jul 9, 2012
Modified Jul 9, 2012
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A funny thing happened when Zenop Tuncer, of Edgewater, New Jersey, went to order some parts from Mercedes-Benz for a 1942 Mercedes 320 Cabriolet D that he'd bought for a client. Turns out? The "rusty, aged hulk with running boards, [and] an old-fashioned vacuum-tube radio" was maybe owned by no less than Adolf freaking Hitler. Can we please persuade the powers that be in Hollywood to make a remake of My Mother the Car based on this story? Please?
Of course, despite the swastika on its info plate, the car might not actually be Hitler's. Though initially it looked like it was the big H's, "there are photos, which still exist from that era, that show Hitler in a Mercedes-Benz type 770," according to an unidentified expert who e-mailed his thoughts to Mercedes a spokesman the Times spoke to. "At the time this was the top of line. The 320 was considered a middle-class car, and that fact alone puts the Edgewater car claim into a very speculative area...Used-car dealers like to bring cars in a correlation with Hitler in hope to get a better price for their car."
It definitively is an Axis vehicle though. Tuncer found the car on eBay while looking for a different model for a client, real estate developer Fred Daibes. And he, at least, doesn't actually think it is Hitler's either. "It was bought by the Nazis," he told the Times. "It was never Hitler’s personal car. There were eight of them purchased for his generals. We don’t know which of them it was bought for."
As for how the car got from Nazi Germany to New Jersey, well: "The story is, an ex-Navy guy ended up with the car" after the war, Daibes said. "The guy in the Navy smuggled it back on a ship, and it was in the basement of his house, where the garage was, when he died. We bought it from his grandson, who inherited it."
Daibes bought the car for $180,000, and says he has already turned down offers to sell it for $1.5 million. So again, we're saying, somebody has to make a TV sitcom about a guy who buys a car haunted by Hitler's ghost. If TV was (barely) able to handle The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer, it can totally handle Mein Führer the Car!
Tagged
adolf hiter
hitler
mercedes
Mercedes Benz
my mother the car
situation comedy
Garth Johnston
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