My friends know that, on top of an Internet addiction, I’ve got a crush on old German cars. Sometimes I wish it wasn’t so, but as I’ll never outgrow this habit, I enjoy the times it’s all working and driving.
Maybe I should write a book about it, reminiscences and anecdotes galore. Like the time when I had to cripple up my VW Pick Up (a.k.a. Dorus the Ute) in reverse onto a ferry mooring a Greek island, clutch cable broken, hopping foot by foot on the overheated starter engine. While Greek and Turkish seamen and circus artists were shouting abuses at me, an enormous seasick elephant bull, who was yanking his chains so fanatically that the ferry moved like a roller coaster, emptied his bowels – into the back of my little pick up.
In Dutch at @ DutchCowboys
Nothing ever shitted on my computers, but apart from that old cars and new computers sing the same song: sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t.
In a classic car belongs an antique radio. Finishing touch in any old Mercedes is a Becker Mexico from the fifties or sixties, the older models with tubes inside, the later ones transistor innards.
Once upon times I owned two or three, but – not old and wise enough yet – swapped them for something new somewhere in the eighties. Forgotten about it, until I received the bimonthly Mercedes Benz Veterans Club magazine, (my two other Germans – w180 220A, w124 300D – carry the star on the hood). Carrying an article about the Becker Mexico 7948, outside a replica, but inside . . . . Since I’ve read it and checked out the Koenigs Classic website, I’m (almost) sold.
The front panel of the 7948 Mexico looks like, well . . ., a Becker Mexico from the sixties or seventies: black and simple, two big turning buttons, four push buttons, under the tape cassette lid (do you know what a cassette is?)
Junks peeking inside a parked Mercedes, seeing a radio like that, rumble on; damning the owner; money enough for a car like that, but not for a decent radio.
Spoofed, because behind that sixties front the Becker has everything a nerd driving old junk could wish or imagine. Gigabytes fat flash cards, mp3, talking navigation dialogue system n whatever language you like, sim card, so the radio becomes it’s own telephone, but you can also use the build in bluetooth for communication with any other mobile device or with your iPod. Much, much more, and of course a healthy Becker Surround Sound system to begin with.
After all this beautiful news the big bummer is the price; 1500 Euros, 1900 dollar. By cripes! Should I?

Specs in German: * Sprach-Dialog-System in Deutsch, Englisch, Französisch, Italienisch, Niederländisch, Portugiesisch, Spanisch, US-Englisch * Dual-Band-GSM-Modul * Internetnutzung über W @ P Service * Download @ – Ziele und externe POIs * SMS versenden, empfangen und vorlesen lassen * Anwahl von gespeicherten Telefonnummern durch Sprachsteuerung * 200 vorprogrammierte Sprach-Kommandos, weitere 50 individuelle anlernbare Sprach-Befehle * OLED-Vario-Colour-Display (15 Farbeinstellungen) * Nachtdesign * Sehr schnelle Routenberechnung durch Zugriff auf CF-Card * 64 MB Arbeitsspeicher * Adressbuch mit 500 persönlichen Einträgen * MP3 Wiedergabe von CF-Card, MMC, Microdrive und SD-Card * Becker-Surround-Sound-System * Bluetooth-Profile: SIM Access, Handsfree, Object-Exchange (OBEX) * Anzeige von “Speed Limit” (die erlaubte Höchstgeschwindigkeit wird im Display angezeigt – auf rd. 100.000 Autobahn-KM in Europa) * Navigation in 34 europäischen Ländern * Navigationsansage in 14 Sprachen (CZ, D, DK, E, F, GB, I, NL, P, PL, S, TR, US, Vlaams), * Dynamische Routenführung mit TMC * Vorlesen von Verkehrsmeldungen in Deutsch, Englisch, Französisch, Italienisch, Niederländisch, Portugiesisch, Spanisch, US-Englisch * 2-RDS-Tuner-Diversity-Technologie * Dynamisches Autostore FM * Inkl. GPS-Antenne, Mikrofon und CF-Card mit 34 europäischen Ländern * iPod-Anbindung mit Becker Remote-Kit (optional). Nutzung der Musik-Wiedergabe-Funktionen (Playlist, Interpret, Alben, Musikrichtung)