Remember the Mercedes E-Class Marathon from Paris to Beijing that I covered 6 weeks ago, well the marathon has been completed and all the drivers returned to their native countries, but the cars remained in China. The next challenge for Mercedes was getting the cars back to Germany for inspections and to drivers that purchased them. Many participants had already taken out purchase options on “their” beloved E-Class vehicles during the marathon trip to Beijing and can now hardly wait to take delivery of their car.

“Drive an E-Class once and you’ll want to drive it forever”: this certainly seems to reflect the mindset of the participants in the E Class marathon who have decided to purchase the very vehicles which they drove from Paris to Beijing. Before they could embark on their second career as private cars or show vehicles exhibited by sponsorship partners and Mercedes-Benz subsidiaries in various countries, these reliable business saloons once again had to travel tens of thousands of kilometres. But, in contrast to the demanding outward journey, this time they were travelling as well-protected cargo.