It took a bit over an hour of driving to reach the small hut in the countryside. I followed Dad and Mom as they entered the poor quarters, stepping through a narrow door, entering a dim room which comprised most of the humble adobe home. Around us, clay cooking pots, a hammock, some poorly assembled furniture, and a bit of sunlight flickering through the straw roof. The meek house was a world away from urban Puerto Rico, another sign we had indeed arrived in a different country. An elderly lady came to meet us, carrying a rustic broom in her hands. After exchanging a few pleasantries, she started to painstakingly sweep the dirt floor. This vexed me: why would anyone broom an unpaved floor?
The man of the house greeted us and started some light talk with Dad. Mom looked around apprehensively, probably going over her reservations in her head. Should everything go according to Dad’s plan, Mom was about to enter a Salvadorian middle class tradition: to have your own housemaid, in the manner of the upper classes.
Eventually the young woman came into the room, staring at us with a deer caught in the headlights look; appearing timid and lost, as her dad and my family worked out the arrangements of what was to be her first job in the city.
A housemaid in our home? What kind of plan was this? Were we to embark on the pretenses of the rich?
Throughout the first half of the 20th century US makes had the luxury market mostly to themselves in Central America. Car ownership numbered only in a few thousand, and brands like Buick and Cadillac had a modest—yet significant—presence. After all, in the tiny economies of the region, possessing any vehicle was only for the well heeled. Even a Model T was beyond the grasp of local peasants and laborers.
The Spanish-descent Central American upper classes considered themselves to be Europe beyond Europe, sending their kids to France, Spain and Italy for education. Before US pop culture became a worldwide-aspiration, the cultural references local elites emulated were those of the Old Continent. And they did so avidly.
Granted, it was a distorted version of ‘Europe.’ Against the tropical heat Mediterranean style villas were built in modern residential areas, public parks aimed to replicate those of Paris, and military displays payed homage to those of Mussolini; all surrounded by lush vegetation, low class barrios and impoverished peasant slums.
A longing for their ‘ancestry’ played in most of their endeavors; society pages celebrated the lives of the affluent, with lavish weddings and banquets in Victorian style reception halls. Servitude was common, with multiple housemaids in charge of the many chores that it took running a house; some assigned to cooking, others to cleaning, a few more to child rearing.
As is often the case the minuscule but rising middle class took to these trappings as well. By the 50’s, newly built suburban middle class homes consistently included a ‘housemaid’ room, and vestibules were common. Cheap Victorian style furniture was widely available and china display cabinets were de rigueur, even if most families had no idea what their purpose was.
Now, the ‘Europe’ that was longed for was the one before the industrial revolution. Lacking silver or gold mines, Central America’s wealth was created on the backs of natives performing all sorts of back-breaking farm labor (coffee pickers above), pretty much maintaining a feudal style economy. Any concept conceived in the wake of the French Revolution was looked upon with suspicion by local elites.
Aspiring to be local señoritos, the lifestyle of being served was the loftiest of goals, encompassing a sedentary sense of luxury. It’s a tradition that still refuses to die in the nation’s psyche. To this day, in local “self-service” gas stations, attendants are ever ready to sprint to your assistance, notwithstanding the Texaco-approved signs that proclaim otherwise.
Car wise, local upper classes moved away from US brands not long after WWII. Reasons are hard to assess; could be American vehicles were becoming too large for local roads, or too flashy and space-agey. For whatever reason, the times were a-changing.
European stereotypes probably played a role in what was to come next. Then again, if stereotypes are ‘played’ right, they can work as a brand: the British had manners and industry, the French sophistication, and the Germans engineering prowess.
This ‘German mystique’ played greatly in Central American nations, with the Teutons’ fame for engineering inspiring nothing but awe. Arriving in local markets in the ’50s, it didn’t take long for Mercedes Benz to establish itself as the preferred ride of the moneyed.
Whatever luxury is, we gotta admit it is an ever changing goal post. And whatever that goal post was, Mercedes had it in spades by the ’60s. It certainly attracted the likes of old money families, given that the brand portrayed a sense of Continental affluence and sophistication. Was it its sedate yet elegant styling? Its solid and hefty built? Or the secure footing of its technical advances?
For a society fixated with ‘sedentary’ upper class pretenses, the solid and restrained elegance of a Benz must have spoken volumes. A link to a past they longed for, extolling virtues of manufacture that drove admiration. No other brand came close.
By the time my family arrived to El Salvador in the mid ’70s, Daimler’s products had displaced all that had come before. A drive through upper class neighborhoods at the time invariably showed a Mercedes and a Cherokee (always together) proudly displayed on the driveway of about every other home.
Now, most Mercedes I ever saw were Heckflosses or W115s, not W111 coupes, which were rare even back in the day. Coming across this somewhat rough sample certainly took me aback.
In typical local fashion, once I was seen taking photos, the car’s owner came towards me and quickly brought up the ‘it’s for sale’ topic. Asking price? A scant $6,000 USD, and the surest way to rid one’s self of an additional $30,000 if choosing to take the plunge.
Noticing that I wasn’t ‘biting,’ the youthful owner chatted away a bit before parting. The 220SE automatic was his dad’s car, and was being moved around while setting a up a gourmet coffee shop in the porch area of the old family house. A TR3 had been moved away as well, with the Benz still in wait for some storage location.
With the house hidden behind off-putting black iron gates, photos fail to show it’s one those ‘European’ streets of yore, now surrounded by modern commerce and seedy alleys. The ‘European’ houses sticking out like sore thumbs in the modernized landscape, a long way from being hanging grounds for the posh anymore.
With coffee not being nearly as profitable as it once was, younger generations of the previously wealthy have taken to new venues reflecting US acquired tastes. Even if aghast, old money types were incapable of keeping away postwar US influences for boisterous fun and relaxed mores. Even old Mercedes dropped the act, pursuing an ‘active’ lifestyle image for the last couple of decades. The ever moving goal post of luxury can no longer be associated with ‘sedentary.’
To some degree, this 220 reflects the fading fortunes of the old moneyed class. Old haciendas have suffered much in the last 40 years under the strain of international competition, growing urban aspirations, and falling produce prices. Fates vary wildly; some ex-coffee plantations now have fancy restaurants, children’s playgrounds, and offer ecotourism escapades to go rappelling and kayaking. Others barely eek by, while a good number have just been deserted.
The 220’s owner obviously belonged to this old money past, trying to keep the old family tradition alive to some degree. After our brief exchange, he got back to sorting out furnishings for the coffee shop area still in the works. I remained taking some final shots.
Once again I owe you photos of the interior, but once I saw the traffic cone on the passenger’s seat I just didn’t dare to look closely. Better to keep memories of the exterior, which I found lovely to look at.
Now, it’s one thing to yearn for the riches of the Old Continent, but it’s another to cheaply ape them. Or evoke them in distorted caricatures.
Even at my scant five years, the housemaid idea was rather irksome to me. Had I already grown too egalitarian in my brief Puerto Rican youth? In any case, it was quite a leap for all involved, with our poor first countryside maid leaving after a short few weeks, overwhelmed by all. Too much city-life to absorb, too restricting a lifestyle, and too many peculiar US-imported appliances to deal with (Dad and Mom had shipped most of our household electronics from Puerto Rico, the Latin quarter of US territories).
The hiring of housemaids stayed on and off for a few years, with countryside girls coming to a house filled with appliances that were like a new science to most.
The most memorable? Poor Carmen, who incidentally was the only maid I ever liked. It never crossed Mother’s head that Salvadorian countryside girls were alien to the concept of pressure cookers (you know where this is going…) The loud bang heard throughout the house that afternoon put the whole family in emergency mode; Mother ran (well, almost), with brother and I rushing to the kitchen. Poor Carmen had her heart in her throat, shocked in horror and shame, with a whole casserole of red beans splattered on the ceiling (some beans must still be there to this day!). Next to her the cooker’s lid laid on the floor, bent on one end. It looked like a crime scene, with gory red beans playing the role of blood splatters.
“What did you do? You’re not supposed to open it!”
Fine time to tell her, Mom! Even though the pressure cooker was now unusable, Mom didn’t hold Carmen responsible, and she stayed in our service until marrying a street policeman some time later.
Many households were not as forgiving or kind, though. It wasn’t rare for Mom and I to visit some classmate of mine and see maids put through their paces in those homes. House owners would bellow orders such as “Come and shut the door! Right away!” even if said door was 3 feet away, and poor maid had to come down three flights of stairs to perform the task (and people wonder why we ever had a civil war?). Fairy tale architectural detailing aside, some of those houses could tell quite a few horror stories.
I rarely think about my family’s housemaids; it’s as if that part of my life was stricken clean from my mind. Good thing, for I prefer a more egalitarian world. On the other hand, I think much more of those Mercedes of yore. Those are the type of memories I can happily live with.
For a more automotive take on the W111 Coupe:
Curbside Classic: 1966 Mercedes Benz 250SE Coupe (W111) – Losing The Fins, Mostly
Terrific post, Rich! Excellent writing and photos all woven around a tale that has deep cultural significance and clearly personal connections. Wow.
uh huh.
Your story resonates with me and my experiences speaking to an old friend who spent his early childhood in South and Central America and then moved back there (Central America) in the early aughts where he remains an expat to this day. From time to time when I’m speaking to him he’ll mention something his housemaid or cook (he has both) has said or done or more often issues that his household has with retaining help. And (knowing a fair bit about him and the basic circumstances of his household) I’ll ask again for clarification as to why a family of 4 living in what would essentially be an average-sized suburban home here in the US actually needs one or two housemaids and a cook. Particularly when both he and his wife (both of whom lived here in the US before returning – in her case – to live in Central America) do things like go grocery shopping, drive themselves, etc. And his explanation is always the same… “This is just how people live here.” (well, I’d add “some people”, but I’m not going there with him) Your story was particularly interesting to me as I’ve never really sat down and read a perfectly understandable (and concise) history of why that’s “just the way it is”. Told from the cultural perspective, this is particularly interesting.
Great car too. Wise to walk away from that, I believe. But what a great catch.
I was thinking the same thing – not just regarding Central America. Friends of ours are from Nigeria, and have mentioned that in their middle-class upbringing they had maids, cooks and drivers. They said something like “labor’s so cheap, everyone hires help.”
From my experience here on the the US East Coast, it seems as if that sentiment has grown here as well over the past generation or two. It amazes me how many people around here hire maids, landscapers, nannies, etc. – not too different from Rich’s post. I suppose egalitarianism comes and goes, and it’s definitely in a waning mode right now.
Eric703,
Growing up in the Washington DC area, and having a widower grandfather who had been fairly high up at the Department of Agriculture before retiring in 1958, our family was surprised when he announced in late 1958 that he would be moving to Pakistan for about 2 years.
Dr. Wright had been hired by the Pakistani government to oversee the introduction of a new type of weevil-resistant cotton plant to replace the decimated weevil infested crop nationwide. At that time cotton had been the biggest export for Pakistan, and it was essential that the new crop be successfully introduced.
Grandfather Wright was driving an almost new 1957 Buick Century 2-door hardtop in black & white when he announced the plans. Problem was, he was told the Buick was not suitable for Pakistan due to rigid social expectations. Seems that an American of his status MUST be driven around by a chauffeur, and a 2-door car would not be appropriate as he would be expected to sit in the back seat.
So what to do? Dad had been driving a 1952 Chevy sedan that needed replacement, so the Buick ended up in our driveway, to the delight of this 7 year old car nut!
But what kind of a car should grandfather Wright purchase and ship over to the middle east? After talking with a few of his diplomatic friends in Washington, he thought it best to buy a vehicle that was suited to his status there.
So he visited Capitol Cadillac, one of the DC area’s regional Cadillac dealerships. He settled on an unexpected purchase; a brand new 1959 Fleetwood 75 limousine with a division window! It was a very dark blue with gray interior, and one of the reasons he bought it was because it had not one, but two air conditioning systems, something of importance in hot Karachi. He said they had 5 series 75 limousines to choose from, but all were black except for the blue one.
Just before he shipped the car out, he came by for dinner, arriving behind the wheel of the Cadillac. And yes, I got to ride in it, with grandfather riding in the back as my dad drove the car around the neighborhood. [Mom had just recently given birth to my brother, so they stayed behind.] I remember dad remarking that Pakistan must be paying him a lot of money for him to buy the biggest Cadillac he could find, and grandfather simply said “Oh Yes”.
When grandfather was in the process of returning to the USA, he discovered there was a Pakistani law that forbade the export of any vehicle from the country unless you were a diplomat. He ended up selling the limo to the Pakistani government, a situation that caused me great sadness when I realized the big Cadillac would not be returning. As far as I know, the Caddy limo is still in Pakistan.
What did grandfather Wright replace the Caddy with on his return? It wasn’t a Buick, as he went right back to Capitol Cadillac and bought a new 1960 Fleetwood 60s sedan, in the same dark blue color. Grandfather vowed to keep the Cadillac only until the ash trays were full, and as a non-smoker who despised tobacco, he kept his promise. When he died in 1974, we inherited his beautiful garaged Cadillac, with unused ash trays.
Awhile back I was wondering about why the US doesn’t have a closer relationship with the many countries in central and south America, and you have given me one very good reason why – the deep cultural differences that came from the Spanish colonizers.
The concept of domestic servants is completely foreign to me. I was first exposed to that as a tot. My paternal grandparents were quite well off along the Philadelphia Main Line, and they had hired Sylvia back in the 1930s. Sylvia was an African-American woman from the deep south who worked as a cook and housekeeper for my grandmother until she retired, and even then would come back to help out for special occasions. She was like a second mother to my dad (or maybe even a first mother) and was one of the sweetest people ever. But here in the US, someone like Sylvia could buy her own cars – hers were always low-trim Chevys. A 70s Nova with dog dish hub caps is the last one I remember.
And cool Mercedes. 🙂
Fantastic post, both about the car, and the cultural (and architectural) history of Central America.
I suppose in Central America, Mercedes was a decade or so ahead of the US in establishing itself as the preferred ride of the moneyed. That was certainly the case here by the 1970s – but I’ve long wondered what were the income demographics of people who bought these upper-end 1960s-era Mercedes in the US. Cadillac and Lincoln still dominated the luxury market then, but I bet that buyers of big Mercedes like this had them beat. It’s just that their sales were small enough that few folks realized it at the time.
Beautiful car, and in my opinion, one of the few cars that looks great in gold.
I can point to two groups who were purchasing Mercedes Benz cars in the 1960s, based on my personal experience. The first group were people like my father, a career officer in the American army. He bought his first Mercedes in 1967 while stationed in Germany (I still remember our family going to the factory to pick it up).
He was not alone – many of his fellow officers purchased Mercedes cars, as well as other European makes. This led to a series of Mercedes in our family up to the present day – my father liked his first one enough he wanted more of the same.
The other group were people who wanted to be discrete about their wealth. Mercedes was not a familiar brand to many Americans in the 1950s and 60s, so it was a way to have a nice car without shouting about it like owning a Cadillac or Lincoln would. For example, we knew a pastor of a successful evangelical church who drove a Mercedes back then. He admitted later that he picked the car because the members of his congregation had no idea what it was or how much it cost.
but I’ve long wondered what were the income demographics of people who bought these upper-end 1960s-era Mercedes in the US.
High. Very high. They were very affluent folks who saw both the intrinsic quality and exclusivity of these high-end Mercedes. Essentially the same kind of folks who were/had been buying other expensive European brands for some time, going back to the immediate post war era.
You would see these in the affluent areas of Southern California and the other typical enclaves of the rich back then. This 300SE Coupe cost some $12k in the US in 1964; a Coupe DeVille was less than half that.
As to the not-so upper end versions, our neighbor in Iowa City, who was a private practice doctor in his early 40s or so bought a 220SE in 1963 or 1964. That cost $5200, almost exactly the same as a DeVille. An increasing number of well-paid professionals were attracted to the qualities of a Mercedes, and then its growing status and prestige factor made it the must have car by the later 60s and on.
Thanks; I hadn’t realized that the higher-end Mercedes of this period were so much more expensive than the Cadillac range.
Mercedes’ most gorgeous car IMO, better even than the 300 SL.
Pressure cookers have always scared me – my mom sometimes used one when I was growing up, a really old one that had this hissing spinning top thing on the lid. I was sure sooner or later it would give out and explode, but it never did. I was never comfortable being in the kitchen when it was in use though.
Another superb essay, and on a subject that I have been exposed to during my LA days, both there and in Mexico City. Although domestic workers in LA among the more affluent are extremely common, and almost essential in the larger houses/estates, the difference in how the help was treated by Anglo-Americans and by more recent affluent Mexican immigrants (as well as in Mexico itself) was quite stark. Americans (at least the ones we knew) tended to be more respectful and treat them as professionals, whereas the Mexicans treated them as servants. The class divide between them was vast, and the vibe was palpable.
A drive through upper class neighborhoods at the time invariably showed a Mercedes and a Cherokee (always together) proudly displayed on the driveway of about every other home.
I resemble that remark! We had just those two in our driveway during my Spanish tv/Telemundo days. And we even had a lovely couple come clean our big house once every two weeks. We got to be friends, we sponsored them to become legal during the 1986 amnesty, and we are still in touch. They ended up working for Larry Ellison, cleaning his numerous mansions in Malibu.
But the Mercedes and the cleaners went bye-bye after I exited that scene, and we gladly clean not only our own house, but our rentals when there’s a turnover.
Lovely car, and interesting insights into the culture behind the use of household servants in Latin America.
From a historical point of view, the situation in the United States was very similar to Latin America until the early 20th Century. The mark of being middle class was having a wife that did not work, and that meant employing servants to cook and clean. Prior to modern appliances and pre-packaged foods, this was hard, time consuming manual labor. It made sense to pay someone else to do this sort of work if you had the money.
This labor was supplied primarily by recent young immigrants, mostly female. Their national origins depended on the part of the USA you lived in – Irish in the Northeast, German and Scandinavian in the Midwest, Latin America in the Southwest. African Americans served mostly in the South before the 1890s, but with the mass migration to the North after Jim Crow, they worked as servants there as well.
The situation changed in the 20th century for a number of reasons. Wage rates went up as a result of the industrial revolution, so fewer people could afford full-time servants. The supply of immigrant labor also sharply decreased after the immigration reforms that followed the First World War. Finally, electrification and the resulting ability to use machines to do work that previously had to be done by hand made housework less arduous, reducing the need for servants.
The date when this transition away from employing servants occurred varied depending on local conditions with respect to labor supply, but in most places it was complete by the end of World War Two. There were exceptions, however, in places with lower wage rates. For example, my parents house in San Antonio was built in 1960, and it still contained a separate room with a bathroom to serve as a maid’s quarters. This was in a thoroughly middle-class neighborhood with modest homes built in around the same time, almost all of which had this feature. By the late 1970s, however, those rooms had been converted to dens or home offices, as live-in maids had disappeared from the scene.
We still have servants, but now they are robots (people call them appliances, but I like to think of them as primitive robots). Washing machines are a good example – what used to take long hours of hard work now only takes a few touches of a button. Cars are moving in the same direction – more and more of the work is done for you, and perhaps eventually they will be able to drive themselves.
My aunt had an old house in Boston that had a servant’s room with a stairway that led directly to the kitchen one level below. They never had a servant though, so it was just a way for the occupant of that bedroom to sneak downstairs for a snack. The main stairway was a square spiral staircase in the middle of the house which had four levels.
Well some of that side story did get me irritated and it wasn’t the car. It was the part about these essentially European transplants, who are really immigrants in these countries, treating the natives in their own country as second class citizens. When I visited Singapore, back in 1992 to see a female friend who worked a corporate job, I would spend the day walking the town. On Sundays the Filipina maids would be out for their short day off (Orchid Road) before going back to their household. It was relatively easy for me to strike up a conversation with them literally by the dozens. How some of them were treated by their masters through verbal abuse and sometimes physical abuse would catch your attention. Thye hung in there for their family. My wife is Filipina, who has been here since 2003 and is a citizen, has had two white males insult her background. Luckily I wasn’t around as I would have…fill in the blank.
Interesting cultural post. My grandparents had a maid named Molly. Midwest. I still remember her fondly, although I’m sure she knew well enough not to treat a grandchild of the house poorly. A black woman of course, this was the midwest in the 60’s. An older cousin says she was treated ok, but not well. I dunno, I was too young.
Onto MB’s We were near Seattle in the early 60s. Imported cars weren’t a thing yet. Someone came to visit us, business I’m sure, my Dad was always VP or executive director of something, and the guests had an MB. Nothing like the 300 pictured, but still, it had a presence. This would have been ’63, pre Mustang, I was young enough I really wasn’t into cars yet, it wasn’t big, it was at night, but there was something about it. I wasn’t told, I just saw it.
Kind of like wine. My wife who likes nothing besides White Zin will occasionally taste a Cabernet of mine. Even she, how knows nothing about wine and likes nothing besides sweet white, can tell the difference and say, oh, this isn’t too bad. Quality shows.
In the mid 1980s I had a small restoration shop just outside Washington DC. A young man came to see the shop. He explained how he was a low-level diplomat from a South American country. He mentioned how he could buy American cars from the 1920s up into the 1940s, many of them very cheap, and he could arrange for cars down there to be restored for a lot less money than here in the USA. However there was one problem – the cars were all right hand drive.
So we began buying and shipping various older cars up to the port of Baltimore. One of the first purchases we made was a 1934 Buick model 60 4-door phaeton. It had been repainted to a high quality and the entire interior re-upholstered in 100% leather. While the car was a genuine 1934 Buick model 60 phaeton, the coachbuilt body was not by GM, but instead one built in South America. To make matters worse, the leather interior, while beautifully done, had been created using undyed cow hides as used in making saddles! It took a long time to sell, and I ended up buying a parts car to convert the car from RHD to LHD.
By the late 1980s we had managed to bring in much nicer original and/or nicely restored cars. We had found a RHD 1938 Ford Deluxe convertible sedan, and I ended up sending a pallet load of all the parts needed to convert the car back to LHD, and that beautiful black car with the Caramel leather interior was a quick sale once it was in the ‘states.
There were plenty of Mercedes-Benz cars available, but the choices were limited to post-WW2 examples, mostly 4-cylinder 170, 180 and 190 series sedans. These we ignored because it cost more to ship them than they would sell for!
However we were not the only people in north America importing cars from south of the border, and by the early 1990s it became harder and harder to find quality cars to import. We kept finding rough ‘ex-taxis’ without their original drive train, many sporting Nissan diesel engines.
Why were RHD cars such a difficult sell? Seems to me a right-hooker Chev or Ford would be more attractive by dint of being unusual.
Daniel,
Having owned and driven cars with steering wheels on the “wrong side”, both in the US and in the UK, I find it fairly easy to get used to except when passing a big truck on a narrow 2 lane road, or going thru a drive thru window.
However In trying to sell RHD cars in America, with the exception of really rare cars or Rolls-Royce & Bentley vehicles, I found most Americans don’t want a RHD car. They don’t even want to try driving one.
In the UK, Brits feel a ‘proper’ American car has LHD, and they really don’t want US cars with RHD! I was never able to sell a RHD US car to a RHD country except for Australia and Japan, because they require the car to be RHD. [Australia now allows LHD cars to be imported under certain circumstances, but I’m not aware of the details.]
I also suspect you think like I do, and enjoy showing unusual cars to the public. I had a 1960 Chevrolet Biscayne with RHD, it was a former postal delivery vehicle, and I loved the attention it received at car shows. But it took years to find a buyer. Same with a 1968 RHD AMC Ambassador that was also a post office vehicle. Both cars were ordered new by private USPS delivery route drivers who used their own vehicles for rural routes and they special-ordered the cars with RHD.
My postal delivery lady who delivered mail to us in rural Taneytown, MD, had a Jeep Cherokee with RHD, and she complained about how no one wanted to buy it due to the RHD situation. I suggested she contact some British car magazines and offer it for sale. She did, and finally sold it to England!