After being a dominant force in Grand Prix racing before World War II, the engineers at Mercedes-Benz must have found the late Forties to be a humiliating period. 
Their nation was a shambles, devastated by the fall down of the Nazi regime with which their cars had been so closely associated, fairly or unfairly, and, as other countries clawed their way out of the abyss, back toward normalcy, they were being left behind. Other, lesser brands were occupying winner’s circles that Mercedes-Benz engineers figured they owned.
Mercedes’ engineers collapse
But the draught in Mercedes-Benz motorsport fortunes would end soon after the Fifties started. Mercedes’ crack engineering corps finally got the approval to go racing, and, under the direction of Rudolph Uhlenhaut, who had been through the good times and the bad times with the company, they jumped into the project with a vengeance. Read more . . .
Apparently, you are a person of elevated tastes (and elevated income). Apparently, even the finest things in life aren’t quite fine enough for your finely tuned lifestyle. So, Bunky, if this is you, just what car should you drive? Our suggestion: none other than a 
amazing sports models the United States has ever seen? We can tell you this: it didn’t happen just overnight. The story, in fact, was some 70 years in the making.
on that day he acquired the Lincoln Motor Company, which was being run by his long-time nemesis, Henry Leland. Some two decades before, Leland and Ford had their first run-in.
It was forced to meet head-on the problem of replacing both a legendary leader and a legendary car. Either topic would be difficult enough, but both at one time? Some might call the job impossible.