By Justin Lee

ACCORDING to Stefan Roehrig, Director of Communications responsible for DaimlerChrysler’s Classic collection, the six vintage cars at “Silver Shining Star” exhibit represent not just important milestones for Mercedes-Benz, but also for the rest of the car industry.

“Each of the cars on display has played a special part in the evolution of the car industry, and they were selected out of the 500 cars that we have at the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart,” said Mr Roehrig to CarBuyer.

The Silver Shining Star exhibition is in fact the first time that a collection from the Mercedes-Benz Museum is making a tour of Asia. These cars have already been exhibited in Taiwan, Korea and Indonesia, and after Singapore, the six cars will be moving on to Malaysia and Thailand, before returning to Germany.

The interesting fact about the cars on tour is that all of them are in working condition.

“At the moment we have preserved their engines in a lubricant, but all we need to do is to clean it off, put in some petrol and start the engine,” said Mr Roehrig.

According to Mr Roehrig, the response to the exhibition has so far been very favourable, and the chances are very good that a second for tour of Asia may be organised.

“But it won’t be until after 2006. At the moment, all my office staff is preparing for the opening of the new Mercedes-Benz Museum, which will open in two years. Any tour will have to be after that.”

MERCEDES-BENZ CARS THAT SHAPED THE WORLD
Benz Patent Motor Car (1886)
As the first car ever produced, the Benz Patent Motor Car represents the invention of the automobile as we know it. It is powered by a single cylinder four-stroke engine of just under 1.0-litre. The car on display is one of several replicas of the original car.

37/70 hp Mercedes Simplex (1907)
This is one of the first cars to bear the Mercedes name. Before this, Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz sold their cars under the name Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft (DMG). Mercedes was the daughter of an influential DMG dealer, Emil Jellinek.

8/20 hp Benz convertible touring car (1913)
This car shows that Mercedes-Benz once built affordable cars. This particular car spent the first 70 years of its life in Australia, and was only shipped back to Germany in the early 1980s. It was sold only as a chassis, and its body was built in Australia under licence.

28/95 hp Mercedes (1924)
This is the first car installed with a supercharger, and was powered by a 7.2-litre six-cylinder aircraft engine. It was the first of a series of “grand” Mercedes automobiles, and won many races, including
the 1922 Targa Florio in race in Italy.

Mercedes-Benz 320 Streamliner “Motorway Courier” (1939)
This elegant four-door hardtop was designed for high-speed cruising on the German autobahns that started to appear in the 1930s. It was designed for long distance cruising, and relied heavily on aerodynamics.

Mercedes-Benz 300 “Adenauer” (1951-61)
This car was named after the German Chancellor, Konrad Adenauer. Mr Roehrig says that this car was also popular with many Asian royalty and Heads of State. The Thai royal family has three in their garage, and the Sultan of Johor is also known to have one.