With an ultra-luxury vehicle, you are looking to court the highest of high-profile customers you can get, and Mercedes-Benz certainly succeeded with the 600 Pullman. Entertainers, politicians, and businesspeople of every stripe got their hands on one of these and, in some cases, more than one. Not only did the 600 appeal to the A-listers of the day, ranging from Jack Nicholson to Hugh Hefner to fellow band members John Lennon to George Harrison, but it was also the limo of choice for some members of the true old school of glamor, admire legendary fashion designer Coco Chanel.
Because it became such a ubiquitous vehicle of luxury for the top of the societal pyramid, the 600 also suffered much of the aesthetic fate of its ancestor, the 770, as it was used by many people history does not look back on with fondness, including Kim Jong-Il, Saddam Hussein, Idi Amin, Pol Pot, and Ferdinand Marcos. When something becomes a symbol of power, people who clamor for power will glom onto that symbol to make themselves look more powerful. If a dictator has the same limo as Elvis Presley, they feel they can project the same image. This is why it makes sense for the makers of the James Bond film series to put arch-nemesis Ernst Stavro Blofeld in a Mercedes-Benz 600 in “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.”
