2022 Classic Mercedes Enthusiast Survey Results

We had an amazing response to our first annual survey, with a total of 319 people from all over the globe completing it, and 7 lucky Mercedes lovers winning a prize.

The results of the survey surely proved that these are some real enthusiasts coming from all walks of life to come together to enjoy these incredible cars.

First on the survey was the question "How many years have you owned classic Mercedes vehicles?” We had a significant number of folks with many decades of ownership under their belt, and a fair amount of people very new to classic Benzes. The average number was 18.9 years of ownership, with 15 years as the mean.

Here’s the results of our second question, “What chassis of classic Mercedes do you currently own?”

As you can see, the W123 leads the list at nearly a quarter of all Mercedes owned. The W126 was beat by the R107/C107 chassis for second place. It’s clear that the W123 is the go-to car for many owners, either as their sole vehicle or one of many in their collection.

The next question is “How many Mercedes-Benz vehicles do you currently own?”

In this chart, nearly half of the people who responded only have one Mercedes-Benz, but that still leaves many folks who have larger collections. When you factor those in, the average number of MB’s owned is 2.22, which seems about right if you are always lusting after that third Benz that you just can’t keep around.

Now, personally, this next question is one of the most interesting to me, “Where do you find Classic Mercedes Community?”

As you can see, respondents are quite diverse in the ways that they find Classic Mercedes community—both online and in person. This diversity provides a plethora of enriching experiences, and I’m really excited to see how MBZ Parts can become a greater part of these communities as we grow.

Next is, “What frustrates you about repairing, maintaining and restoring your old Benz?”

Without intending to, I ordered the questions in this list in nearly the exact order of their importance to our customer base. That’s because here at MBZ Parts, we know that parts availability and cost are by far the biggest challenges that our customers and we’re doing everything we can to face those issues head-on. The primary goal of the current expansion we’re undertaking is to expand our inventory of rare and hard-to-find parts, and indeed we’ve already moved a massive collection of parts into our new warehouse. This is a necessary step due to the gradual loss of New OEM parts availability, but it’s a big one and it’s going to take time and capital in order to make it happen. If you want to be a part of this exciting expansion, please consider investing in our equity crowdfunding campaign on Wefunder, where you can become an owner in MBZ Parts for as little as $200.

This next question definitely brought some enthusiasm, “What are your favorite classic Mercedes-Benz chassis?”

Choosing what are your favorite Classic Mercedes chassis types allows us to be a little more aspirational. Personally, I adore the W111 but I haven’t been able to make one happen for myself yet. So this was interesting to see, as it comes out differently than what cars people currently own. The results are a bit more evenly distributed across the older models, and the W113 in particular has a much higher response.

We then asked, “How do you usually find products on our website?”

The results of this question were personally pleasing to me. I think that searching within the chassis category is the most efficient way of finding parts in our ever-growing catalog, so I was glad to see that it is also the most popular method utilized by our customers. If you haven’t tried it yet, I encourage you to do so. When you’re on our home page, select the chassis of your vehicle, then type in a keyword in the search box.

Next we have a few star ratings questions.

We included these particular questions because we are always aspiring to do better in these categories. I’m glad to see that we’re doing a pretty great job already, but that we have room to improve.

This last question, “How can MBZ Parts serve the classic Mercedes community better?” is perhaps the most important, boiling down all of the above to this one thing—how can we serve you better?

As we grow, this question is on the forefront of our minds at every turn. As you can see, the response was overwhelmingly “MORE PARTS!”, and as I discussed above, we are working very hard to do so. In addition, we are doing what we can to serve, and also participate in and lead the Classic Mercedes community as it continues to evolve. Hosting community events and spaces both in person and online is a major next step for us and one that we’re very excited about. We’ll soon be continuing our regular “Classic Conversations” live video event series, and once our new warehouse is all setup in San Bernardino, CA we’ll be hosting our first ever car show.

MBZ Parts is here to help ensure a lasting future for vintage Mercedes vehicles, and having so many enthusiastic customers and cohorts along for the ride with us makes it so worth it. I want to thank each of the 319 people who completed this survey and provided valuable insights that will help shape our future.

Sheila Heaney
CEO
MBZ Parts