Like a mini Mount Rushmore, a vintage Mercedes is emerging from a pile of limestone boulders on the edge of a small Croatian town. The life-sized sculpture is a homage to thousands of emigrants who proudly returned home from Germany at the wheel of the ultimate status symbol. Like many poorer areas across southeast Europe and Turkey, Imotski sent thousands of its sons and daughters to work in Germany as “gastarbeiters” or guest workers in the 1960s and 1970s.
And those that returned home driving a Mercedes-Benz were seen as having made it. “It was a symbol of success, anyone who had one could have his pick of girlfriends, sit in the front row in church,” said Ivan Topic, who worked in construction in Frankfurt for 18 years before returning to Imotski in 1997. Topic came up with the idea for the monument, arguing that the rugged endurance of the ageless “Minika” - as the classic 1960s W115 saloon is called here - mirrors the qualities of the rocky region’s people.
“That car was way ahead of its time, and it’s modern even today,” he told AFP as he helped workers put the final touches to the statue in local white karst stone. Town full of Mercedes The people of Imotski remain huge fans of the brand. Half of the area’s 16,000 registered vehicles are Mercedes.
As well as being a synonym of success, Mercedes-Benz has become deeply embedded in the identity of the region and its people, said Mislav Rebic, who came up with the design. The poor agricultural area c.
