It's not everyday you hear about a media event going completely wrong. But in Mercedes-Benz's case, that's exactly what happened this week in Spain.
On a media drive for its all-new Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG, apparently a dozen and a half folks in the business were stopped by police and detained for a couple of hours. While the reason provided was the lack of an International Driver's License, we're thinking there's something else involved here.
That's because an IDL is not required to legally drive in Spain — according to another auto pub.
Whatever the case, this is just a major fail for all parties involved.
**Special thanks to our friend, Lauren, for passing this along!
After a lovely day bombing over the picturesque twisties and sweeping bends of the Catalonian countryside under and over the sawtooth protrusions of Montserrat, and just before arrival at their refined golf course-adjacent lunch destination, about a dozen and a half writers from major and minor automotive and lifestyle publications were detained by local police. The reason given by the guarda civil trafico? Failure by any of the assembled media to produce an International Driver's License.
Though the flimsy card requires no test, attests solely to the owners possession of a valid American driver's license, and is not required to drive legally in Spain, the journalists were held on the side of the road, and then in a pen-like local parking lot, for nearly two hours. Worse than this, six $100,000 Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG sedans and wagons were impounded indefinitely and the blameless journalists involved were banned from further participation in the afternoon driving of the 550-hp cars.
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