Nicked mercedes badge

"marlin" haute in die Tasten:

Today they show you, were your car ends in the front;-)

To me a Mercedes without star is like a cowboy without cowboy boots.

Frank

"Dori A Schmetterling" haute in die Tasten:

You are talking about the Europa Center Berlin

. The star still is in place and riots would take place if Mercedes (or anybody else) would dare to remove it. This building with its star is one of the most famous icons for the cold war West Berlin. Mercedes opened a new, impressive subsidiary in Munich about 18 months ago (14 floors high, which is one of the highest buildings in munich). They wanted to place a rotating star on top of the building and this was forbidden by the local construction authority. They kept on lobbying around with bavarian and federal politicians until finally this local decision was ruled out by a higher instance. About two hours after the final decision to allow the rotating star, the thing stood there in the bavarian sky - glowing, rotating and fully operational.

BTW: This building is located some three miles away from the main railwy station at Arnulfst. It is definitely worth a visit if you happen to be in Munich. They also have a small restaurant inside, if you do not want to pretend to be interested in buying a car, and they always have some interesting cars on display (vintage cars, prototypes, Mercedes McLaren and such)

Frank

Thank you. I was hoping someone would come up with a suitable picture. I have actually seen thise buildings but it was long ago and I had forgotten the building name (Euroa Center).

All I could find was variations on this:

(4).jpg

But I also noticed that I had overlooked this:

which is obtained by clicking on a very small photo first. (But does not show that view of the church and star.)

I agree, absolutely iconic, especially as it was so close to the Wall.

DAS

"Dori A Schmetterling" haute in die Tasten:

Actually, the Europa Center is not very near to the Wall. It is roughly five miles away. But it stood for the new city centre of Berlin, when the old centre was destroyed (Potsdamer Platz) or occupied (Alexanderplatz).

Frank

When I used to drive into Berlin on business (from Hamburg, where I was living) in the early Eighties I used to cross to the East sometimes (purely privately). I used to take great pleasure in parking my fat-capitalist-pig symbol of a car (W123 D200 Weizengelb -- have mentioned this car before in other contexts) on Marx-Engels-Platz (IIRC), a very shabby little square (what wasn't shabby??) and leave it there for the day while I did what I had to do. Among other things I used to be driven round by a friend in a Trabbie...(Trabant).

But, I always knew my car was safe.

DAS

I've had my star swiped three times in about 7 years, twice in front of a friends house,(a cop, no less), and once while it was at the mechanics. The drivers side window was smashed and the trunk was whacked on that one also.

Mechanic told me that the way the little weasels get the star out is twist and twist and twist to tighten the spring on the underside of the hood. Eventually, the spring puts enough tension on the mounting that it spins and pops back through the hood. I made it more difficult to do this by bending the tabs a bit on the underside of the hood once it was installed. This prevents it from easily popping through the hole. Vandals would either have to snap the star off the hood or do some serious prying to get it out. Most of the ones who just want the stars for trophys or jewelry are not willing to do this as it takes time and makes noise, two things they don't want.

Admittedly, after replacing the third one, the temptation was there to hook a capacitor to the hood ornament.....Won't do it, but tempted, yes!!!!!

Rochelle