Hypersonic

Hello Chris,

I think the prestige thing is interesting ...and has a lot to do with the different social structures between the UK and Germany. Rolls-Royce and Bentley have always been tied up with the old British class system. Rolls-Royce was always associated with the British Establishment ...Charles Rolls, himself, was an aristocrat. As we know, Rolls-Royce has long been seen as a symbol of British Royalty -- even though for many years Daimler (the British Daimler, not Daimler-Benz) were the official cars of the King.

Mercedes was always less about image and more about function -- a product of German industrial Modernism. Although Britain was the first industrialized nation, the average English citizen never embraced the Industrial revolution the way the Germans did. It seems to me, Germans love industry and technology ..and embraced it, particularly after WW1, with great passion.

Even in the late twentieth century, the German love of technology was evident, even from such things as Techno music -- which started in German underground clubs.

I saw a documentary about WW2 on The Discovery Channel, there were some tanks the Nazis had -- they were so incredibly well built ....so superior to anything the Allies had. The one thing was, the Germans didn't have so many of these tanks because they were so "over-engineered" and carefully made they were time-consuming to build. This is something the whole world has long admired, the German attitude of building things to the highest possible standard. Made In Germany -- still has a resonance about it that is unmatched by any other country of origin -- even if many German brands now actually make their products in Eastern Europe or Asia.