I grew up in Europe where seeing trucks that crossover as daily driving vehicles aren’t particularly common. Then I moved to the U.S where resides the worlds largest market for trucks that people don’t actually need.
The irony of course is that Mercedes will be selling these in Europe and South America for sure, and there’s no answer to wether they will eventually make it to the U.S or not.
There’s a good argument here for the U.S government to ensure they do make it the U.S market and make a deal to suspend the “Chicken Tax” ( a 25% tariff on potato starch, dextrin, brandy, and light trucks imposed in 1963 in response to tariffs placed by France and West Germany on importation of U.S. chicken) for these Mercedes on the basis of helping law enforcement.
Bear with me here, I have actually thought this through.
We can take it as read that American truck owners tend to be rather overt about being American and owning a German badged truck would be both ethically wrong to such people as well as a faux par amongst their social and familial circles. Or as my rather colourful Ford F150 driving neighbour puts it:
“If it ain’t ‘Murican it ain’t worth shit”.
So given the cultural importance of patriotically branded trucks to Americans through the social scale, the importation and sale of these Mercedes trucks would basically be rolling probable cause* for law enforcement because the only people that will actually be driving them will be the operators of crime organisations and rappers that have found themselves with enough money for a Mercedes truck and a big bag of nose candy.
There will of course be regular poseurs caught up, but they deserve having to produce their documents once in a while to a man with a gun while the people they tailgated earlier drive by with their phones recording.
While I’m not a fan of giving away rights, let alone based on stereotypes, I am rather amused by the idea of a twat tax that involves the possibility of said twats being tasered for exhibiting non compliant behaviour in public.
Make this happen America!
* Rolling Probable Cause – slang for an occupied, moving vehicle that stimulates an officer’s instinct, indicating a need for an investigative stop.
