Boy what a time it is to be alive, huh? Housing market’s gone to shit, wages have stagnated, England’s on fire, Israel’s popping shit off in the middle east like it’s nobody’s goddamn business, Presidents are getting deposed and shot, and people are pissed the fuck off. Rightfully so, too. So why is it then that when I got behind the wheel of this, frankly, overly expensive car, with all the bells, whistles and tassels of a cheap strip club, do I suddenly feel comfortable?
The Mercedes Benz GLB is not an EV. It’s an ICEV, frankly a slightly underwhelming one. But you know what? I don’t care now. Driving this thing made me feel superior. I now understand what “pomp” and “circumstance” is. Climate change? What’s that. I’m in a Mercedes . My house is secure. I own two businesses. I have a loving wife and a big family. Everything is going great. Were my parents rich? Sure. Were theirs? Who knows? Point is? I just dropped $100k on a car that doesn’t give any semblance of a fuck about your opinion. It’s a punch squarely to the face, stomach and ballsack of every motoring enthusiast. It’s slow, lumbering and frankly you could probably do a lot better for a lot less.
but OOOOOOOOOOOOOO is it nice.
…that’s the general sensation I got from driving the GLB. Is it a good car? Sure, but you have to throw numbers completely out the window. Stop thinking with your brain for a second here.
See, we live in the age of post-truth, and we’re well deep into the Postmodernist movement now. The cyberwar still rages, and as you all know, I’m riding the vibecession. Postmodernism is a rejection of the idea that hard work brings rewards. A Mercedes used to be an austere yet symbolic gesture that you were something, and indeed, it still is. With a $100,000 price tag, you kinda have to be somewhat wealthy to own one. However, there’s something interesting i watched on YouTube a while back, from a YouTuber named Cara Nicole, about how Luxury brands are made to keep you poor, and it got me thinking. Is this Mercedes just a $3,000 Gucci bag, but as a car?
Yeah. It is. But that’s the thing right? If you’re rocking a Gucci Bag, you don’t care. You made it. You feel like you’re a baller. In the past, Mercedes was a brand you purchased when you made it to the good life, working up the corporate ladder to the point where yes, yes. I can finally buy that girl a Mercedes-Benz as the song suggested. It was a symbol of hard work. Now? It’s about the idea of hard work. The idea that if you don the garments of the rich, you become the rich, or rather, you can cosplay as them temporarily.
There’s a concept in Asian culture known as “face”, miànzii in Mandarin Chinese, mặt ngoài in Vietnamese, Kao in Japanese. The idea that you have to be forward-presenting, clean, sharp, honorable and respectful. In a way, buying a Gucci Bag or a Mercedes is a way of preserving, or projecting face. It’s a way to say to others “I work hard. Look at how prosperous i have become, witness the sweat from my brow, manifest in a shiny white SUV.”
Indeed, it is perfectly reasonable, healthy in fact, to be proud of what you have achieved as a person. The people who own this GLB? I really like them a lot. They’re hardworking, kind people. I’m thankful that they have me the chance to drive this car, because man, it was really, really nice. Even though actually, it’s slightly underwhelming as a car, being about as quick as something like my Commodore in a straight line, and having a particularly drony 4cyl engine driving the front wheels, you honestly could not care less what’s under the hood, because the presence this car projects is entirely what it’s all about.
I like the look of Mercs as of recent. They have this real, swoopy yet elegantly sophisticated look to them. It’s quite the polar opposite to what BMW has been doing, with its hard edges and frankly, gopping front grills. The M3 and M4 are particularly egregious offenders of this. BMW has only made a few good lookers as of recent. The F10 and F30 5 and 3 series, maybe the E46, E39, E36 and E30 maybe. Apart from that? Stinkers. Mercs? Well The A and ML class look a little goofy, and maybe the B and R class leave a lot to be desired, but mostly? Mercedes look pretty good to me. Likewise with this GLB. It’s handsome on the outside. Nice, swoopy curves, with a little pepper of aggression with the AMG-Line bodykit which comes as an option on some models. Just don’t, whatever you do, go out and put AMG badges on the back like every Singaporean who got stiffed on a COE for a C200 does lah.
But here’s the thing. Functionally, it’s about as functional as a Mazda CX5, or a Hyundai Tuscon, or any other medium-sized SUV of similar ilk. Modern technology has become more accessible than ever, and things that made the old, 14-yo me go “wow, that’s so cool” in a car, stuff like Radar guided cruise control, leather seats with heating and ventilation, infotainment with video playback when the car’s stationary, so on and so forth, are all now things that you can access on even the most entry-level models of vehicle now. Hell, I can get CarPlay in a Hyundai Venue, and I can get Ventilated seats on a Hyundai Kona, a car that costs half the price of this car when new… Something which this $100,000 GLB doesn’t have. Hell even base model Tesla Model 3s offer this feature at just over half the price.
So why buy a Mercedes? Well, it’s simple. It’s all about the emotional perception of wealth. Sure, you can buy a Hyundai with all the kit that this Mercedes has. In fact, my mum’s newly purchased 2018 Kona Highlander has arguably more kit than this Mercedes does. The GLB doesn’t have Ventilated seating, for one, and for another, i’d argue that the Kona’s interior is put together to a higher quality standard than this Merc’s.
The interior of Mercedes these days is kinda second-rate in my opinion. The plastics are too shiny. Mercedes’ vision of futurism is a little too “Blakes 7” for me, lots of shiny fake chrome, swoopy lines and graphics that belong in the mid 2000s, the MBUX display reminded me of the graphics I saw when I Beta-tested Windows Vista back in high school. In a way, it is luxury in the most “face” sense of it all. So long as it projects the idea of luxury, who cares if underneath it all, it’s plasticky and cheap, and it feels more like a BYD than it does a Bentley. Gimmie the austere restraint and clever Scandinavian-inspired design of a Volvo or Polestar any day over this interior, please.
But it’s the perception. You look rich, so therefore you are rich. We live in an age of post-truth, an age where people go into $80,000 of debt to be perceived as tough, rich, sensible, whatever. Nothing matters, there’s no genuine character to anything. You wanna be perceived as a well-sorted eco-conscious type? Go buy a Volvo EX30 and bask in the sea of recycled materials. Want to be perceived as a person who should not ever be fucked with, lest you snap in an almighty rage and hurt the person who dares get in your way of ripping off your clients who just want reasonably priced electrical work? Go buy a Ford Ranger… or if you’re that man’s boss? a Dodge Ram. Wanna be perceived as a wealthy, tech focused person? Go buy a Tesla. Wanna be perceived as someone who is richer than they actually are? Go buy a Mercedes.
The truth is, you’re going to die someday, right? The Mercedes, Tesla, Ranger, Ram and Polestar owners are all going to end up being just as dead as one another one day, so who cares if you see a guy driving a Mercedes? Your life might suck, you may not have been born into money, but in the paraphrased words of Lee Kwan Yew, “We are all dealt a deck of cards, and it is how you play those cards that determines you as a man”. So if your goal in life is to enjoy the things that you were denied as a child, then by all means, seek to acquire those things with fervour and determination. You need to have that fire in you to rule over your own life, just as Mr. Lee had that fire in him to rule over Singapore.
And this leads me to think about my choice of car. I know, comparing a car to the actions of one of the world’s most controversial and influential politicians is a hilariously off-base thing, but once again, to Paraphrase mr. Lee, “I believe in Correctness, not Political Correctness”. I have personally been grappling with the idea as to whether or not a Tesla is the right choice for me, given my moral proclivities, my beliefs in a fair and just society, where we actively fight climate change in whatever way possible. One thing that I admire about Tesla as a company, is that it’s a company that’s got that fire in it. For every controversial story about a Model S catching on fire in an underground Chinese carpark, there’s another 100 about a Model 3 smashing efficiency records for motor vehicles, about how the on-board technology used for Autopilot literally saved someone’s life in a crash, or about how a Tesla Model S has lasted for nearly 2 million kilometres on its second battery pack and fifth drive unit. Teslas are, in terms of Electric Vehicles, the most correct choice, even if their leadership is marred with controversy. This is of course, by no means, justifying all the actions of Elon Musk, who has recently gone off the drug-induced deep end, but you have to admire the company he owns a 15% stake of taking some ballsy risks on Autonomy, electric efficiency and software, all to allow people with reasonable means to be active participants in the climate change fight.
I get though, some people don’t care for politics. The two people who own this car certainly don’t. What they care about is giving their kids a better life than what they had. How they’re choosing to play their cards, is by using their advantage they built back at home to give their kids a better life than they had. They go to a nice school, they live in a nice home, and their parents work diligently to ensure their kids have a good future. Is that not what you’d expect your own parents to do? Mine certainly did, but in a different way. My mum never owned a Mercedes, She’s owned Hyundais for the past 23 years. Her Mercedes is a Kona Highlander. Mum’s also not a stickler for politics either, since she’s a British Permanent Resident with no skin in the game here in Australia.
Me, I see politics in the same way as Mr. Lee sees it. There is no Correctness other than Correctness itself. You need to face a crisis with a vision in your mind, and fire in your belly. I have always, always seen Teslas as cars of admiration. Cars that are ballsy and different, just like how I have seen Mercedes, as cars with technology that is implemented purely to give the users of said vehicles a sense of comfort that no other car can bring. A comfort in knowing that you’ve got enough money to weather a storm or two… Unless of course you financed this thing.
The Mercedes GLB is that car. It’s comfortable, both in its perception and its physical experience. There’s an extra $50,000 of assuredness that your badge proves you’re a hard working person. Is the car itself any different to the absolute wash of CUVs out there? Nope! I’d argue in some ways it’s worse. But who cares!?, it’s a Mercedes. You’ve made it. That’s all that matters. In terms of projecting wealth in the classical sense, it’s the most correct way to do this, surely? For me? No. For someone else? Yeah.
…And this is why I think the modernism vs. postmodernism cyberwar will never really be won. Modernism has its merits, the belief that all your hard work will reap rewards. But, Postmodernism argues that there is neither an apex, where you will achieve nirvana through your labor, nor is there a point, due to the fact that what is perceived as meritorious changes over time. When a BYD is as well-built as a Mercedes, when a Hyundai is better built than a Mercedes… Is there really a point to buying one, other than the Badge? The Modernist will say yes, because the Badge itself is the symbolic reasoning, therefore it is a better car by merit of its brand’s representation of quality. However the postmodernist would argue that the cultural capital of owning a Mercedes is the entire point of such a vehicle, and that underneath it all it serves no purpose other than to allow the owner to project an exterior sense of wealth. Me, an existentialist, would basically say something along the lines of, if the car was earned through decent work, then it really does not matter what you own. What matters is the labor behind it. I’d much rather someone who works hard, serves a purpose and does so with decency and diligence own a Mercedes, than some rich prick who simply got the vehicle through luck, inheritance or nepotism own said car.
And it leads me back to the owners. They’re nice people. The people who I have met who have worked their way into luxury vehicles off the sweat of their own backs are all nice people. Maybe it’s because they share the position I see myself in, sitting halfway between Modernism and Postmodernism. Hard-working, but understanding of the fact that the only thing that really matters is what that work represents to others. We’re all going to die some day, but if you feel more comfortable knowing that you get the chance to own something you’ve always wanted, does that not make your life worth living? For me, that something is a Tesla. For my friends, that something is a Mercedes GLB 200, and that’s all that matters to me.
Thank you for letting me drive this car. Whilst it is not something i’d ever consider for myself, it’s something i completely understand why people would buy for themselves. If you’re looking for a comortable, practical and luxurious vehicle for you and your family, you could do worse, but you could do better. You pay a lot for the badge, but the Badge may be worth it. I certainly get it.
– Beano Out.