2023 Classic Mercedes Enthusiast Survey Results

We had an amazing response to our second annual survey of vintage Mercedes-Benz owners, with a total of 283 people completing the survey, with ten of those folks winning some awesome prizes (see here for prize info).

Here's a full accounting of the results, with a comparison to last year's survey as well.

The first question asked how long customers have owned a classic Mercedes vehicle. While nearly 66% responded with a decade or more of ownership under their belt, this year there was a significant number of new owners who have only owned these vehicles for a year or two. The average number of years of ownership dropped from 18.9 in 2022 to only 6.8 this year, although the mean increased from 16 to 17.

On to the next question:

Not surprisingly, the W123 has taken a significant lead again, with the R107/C107 Chassis again in 2nd, and the W126 coming in third. Those are fairly similar to last year. We expanded the scope of this question this year, adding both earlier and later models, since we are working to expand our inventory of both. It's interesting to see that W110/W111/W112 models combined ranked higher than every other chassis prior to 1976.

Now, compare that chart with question #8, which asks what peoples' favorite chassis is:

As you can see, the W123 still leads the list with R107/C107 in second place. However, right behind the 107 is, not surprisingly, the W113 Pagoda SL. A consistent crowd-pleaser and a car that many classic MB drivers dream of owning some day. Otherwise results are fairly mixed--for the most part similar to the ownership distribution but of course with exceptions here and there.

Ok, back to question #3, a fun one in my opinion. How many cars do you really need?

These results were very similar to the previous year's, with about half of respondents reporting only one MB owned and trickling down from there. Notably, 13 people replied with "other" because they have more than 5 Mercedes vehicles.

With the next question we start to get a little more personal, asking where people find social connections to share in their love of vintage Benzes.

These results are actually also very similar to the prior year. I find it very interesting that even though we had a much larger number of folks completing the survey who are new to Classic Mercedes, that they are still connecting with the pre-existing social networks in the same way.

The next results differ a bit in some intriguing ways:

We like asking this question because we are dedicated and motivated to easing these frustrations as much as we can. We're working diligently to greatly expand our catalog of parts, even as Mercedes-Benz keeps discontinuing vital parts on a daily basis. I started this company over a decade ago because of my own challenges in finding parts while restoring classic Mercedes vehicles. Last month we switched gears and started a new project in which we aim to increase the number of products in our digital catalog this year from 3,500 to 10,000. We'll be sharing more information about that soon, and if you'd like to support that happening I would encourage you to check out our Equity Crowdfunding Campaign on Wefunder, and consider becoming an investor.

What's interesting about the differences between this year's results and last year's are that many more people chose finding a qualified technician and lack of how to information this year, while the cost of repairs and price of parts has become less of a concern. I think this tells part of the story of these vehicles aging and more of them becoming true "classics". It's getting harder to find information and knowledgeable technicians, but as that shift occurs these vehicles also continue to raise in value. That makes the cost of repairs and parts less of a concern, as those become more of an investment in the vehicle.

Fewer people responded that they're frustrated in finding it difficult to talk to about their cars, which is very encouraging. It gives me hope that new Classic Mercedes enthusiasts are finding the social connections that can be much needed while deep in a restoration project. I imagine that this change is in part a result of the reduced impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on all of our lives.

We regularly send out newsletters and write blog articles for your enjoyment, so we wanted to ask about those as well:

It's great that so many people are enjoying these! Thank you for letting us know, we will make sure to keep sending you interesting content, and the responses to this survey will help us to keep that content relevant for our customers.

The next results are my favorite:

This might be the most boring question here for most other people, but as the person that did most of the web design for our site, I'm incredibly pleased that not only is searching within a chassis category the most popular method used by our customers, but the proportion of customer's finding products that way has increased significantly since last year. Why does this matter? Well, because if you're looking for a particular part, using keywords to search within the specific chassis that you're working on is by far the most effective way to find the most accurate results. If you haven't tried it, I strongly recommend it.

Next, we have some star rating evaluations:

We're always looking for ways to improve customer experience, and while there's definitely more room for improvement in all three of these fields (and we're working on solutions for all of them), it's very pleasing to see that our ratings from customers increased on all three of these questions since last year.

Now, the big pressing question, how can we serve the community better?

As expected, mostly people want us to expand our inventory, but this year that answer took the prize by an even greater margin than last year. It will be interesting to see how people answer in a year from now, after we've tripled the size of our catalog!

Since we just relaunched our campaign on Wefunder, we thought we'd ask if people were familiar with the concept, and with the campaign itself:

Wow, it's really exciting that so many people are considering investment! We'll be sending more information about the campaign soon, but you can view all the details on the main page on Wefunder. Note that the early bird terms are nearly full, so get your investment in soon if you want to take advantage of that offer.

Thank you so much to everyone who responded to this survey, and to all of our customers for your continued dedication to this company, and to these gorgeous cars whose incredible engineering may never be surpassed.

Sheila Heaney

CEO & Founder

MBZ Parts