New Car and Hansel & Gretel

We arrived in Stuttgart with only a few inconveniences. There was confusion about our connecting flight and seat assignments that had to be worked out, but it was resolved and the flights were uneventful. One bag was misplaced on arrival in Stuttgart but it had been located by Lufthansa by the time we arrived at the airport and it was delivered that evening. Mike and I went to the Porsche museum in the afternoon – mostly to stay awake. It was interesting and it made us become familiar with the Stuttgart subway system.

The next morning we had a nice breakfast at a local pastry shop and caught a cab to the Mercedes Customer Service Center outside of Stuttgart. Upon arrival, the staff made us feel very welcome and comfortable. Everything was very high quality – as you would expect from Mercedes. We were able to take a tour of the factory which was fascinating. There was only one other English speaking couple on the tour with us. In fact, we were the only two Americans picking up cars that day. Turns out the vast majority of pickups (350 per day) are for German customers.

The factory tour was great. We saw part of the assembly process which is 99% automated. There were enormous robots picking up the metal floor panels, flipping them around for other robots to do the welding. On the entire floor there were only 25 staff to run the operation.

We also saw the finish assembly process. Partially built cars would move along a conveyer belt with people installing different parts. The staff rotates among stations so that they are not doing the same job over and over. We also saw the quality check. The car goes through a tunnel with more than 100 cameras that measure tolerances. Any discrepancies are flagged and fixed on the line. Every third car is test driven. We think ours was one since it arrived with 11km. A typical line worker makes about $50,000 per year for a 35 hour work week, six weeks of vacation and full medical coverage. AND, after 25 years, their salary doubles!


After an amazing lunch, complements of Mercedes, we went to the lounge to wait for our car. Mike and I got confused about the color. We saw three different cars that we thought was ours before we got it right! It was fun to be on the second floor looking down over all the new cars ready for delivery to happy owners. It was finally our turn and we were given a detailed explanation of all the functions on the car. We had a full tank of gas – a big deal in Europe where gas is about $5/gallon. The Germans only received 3 gallons. Finally, Mike got to drive the car off the showroom floor. We exited through large sliding glass doors – one door read “Nice Trip” and the other door, in German, read “Gute Fahrt”. Mike got a big chuckle out of that.

We drove over to the Mercedes Museum and did a rather fast tour before it closed. We were able to use the European navigation system to find our way back to the hotel and VERY carefully park the car for the evening. We had a nice dinner at Oggi, a casual Italian restaurant, to celebrate the new car.

The next day still felt like we’re on vacation but with a really nice car. We’re not able to process any more than that except that this mountain of luggage has gotten old in a hurry.


We started our drive through the Black Forest. The Black Forest got its name because the dense tree canopy makes it very dark underneath. And, indeed, the evergreen trees are very dense. We had a nice drive along the Schwarzwaldhockstrasse, the high road along the mountain ridge in the middle of the Black Forest. We had lunch in the town of Freudenstadt. They had some stalls set up in the middle of town where they were selling crafts and food.
We couldn’t resist a hot bratwurst with mustard. At least we split it! And it was very yummy! The road through the Black Forest led up B500 just along the ridge line. When we started getting into the forest, we noticed that the trees appeared to have a tinge of silver around their edges. Turns out it was snow – little ridges of snow along each tree branch. At the lower elevations, it was a thin line of snow, but as we went higher, the temperature dropped to 35 degrees and the snow covered the branches. It was beautiful! The road runs for several kilometers along the mountain top before dropping into the valley were Baden Baden is cozily
situated. More on Baden Baden shortly, but for now, we relish the drive through the forest with the dusting of snow on the trees and magic in the air.