Remember when you used to order your entire vehicle from the Christmas catalog? Yeah, me either. But this is exactly what six very wealthy people did in 1999. In one of the strangest marketing moves I’ve seen, our friends at Europa International, the G-Wagen importer before Mercedes officially starting bringing in the G500 in 2002, partnered with luxury department store Neiman Marcus to sell a special edition G500 through their Christmas catalog. It was a three page spread (attached below) with a few photos and a paragraph of information all to hit you with the price tag: $160,000. For those keeping score at home, that is nearly $240,000 in today’s money. What did you get for all that dough? A G500 with a special two-tone interior and Swedish Birch wood trim. Like I mentioned, they only managed to sell six of these. I am not sure if you ordered this and the G factory would build them or they only built six to sell. My guess is the former.
Today, one of these Neiman Marcus Gs is up for sale in the Atlanta area. This is one of two that I’ve ever even see photos of and luckily for the next owner of this G500, it has been cared for and loved over the past 17 years. Question is, are you willing to pay a pretty big premium for it?
