Marcus Breitschwerdt carries the calm assurance of a man whose task is nothing short of guarding 138 years of history. Since 2022, he has been CEO of Mercedes-Benz Heritage GmbH, the company responsible for preserving and evolving the brand’s extraordinary automotive legacy. Simon Cundey, meanwhile, is the seventh-generation custodian of Henry Poole & Co., the Savile Row tailor often described as the founder of bespoke. Their paths first crossed at the inaugural Savile Row Concours in 2022 and from the outset, there was obvious common ground.”
“Technically it started there,” Marcus recalls. “Simon and I immediately understood that we are based on the same principles: pure craftsmanship, quality and product innovation.”
The saddlers of the Mercedes-Benz Classic Centre and the tailors of Henry Poole & Co. brought craft to life at this year’s Concours of Elegance at Hampton Court Palace. In a joint workshop, the automotive experts demonstrated how to rebuild and reupholster the leather seat of a Mercedes-Benz 300 SL, while, just a few steps away, Henry Poole’s team sewed a made-to-measure suit jacket.
Mercedes-Benz is expanding its Classic Centre in Fellbach to 18,000 square metres. In the medium term, some 70 specialists will be taking care of classics with the star at that location – a significant commitment to heritage. Marcus sees this as a fundamental step. “The strongest asset that Mercedes owns is the brand, and the brand is totally built on heritage from 1886 until today. This is why we maintain at least one preserved example of every model series Mercedes has built since 1886. Some are hidden away, but 160 of them are on display in our museum. People want to engage with something reliable and rooted in tradition, something that remains rock solid in an ever-moving ocean.”
I-M Inquisitive Minds’ Social Media Editor, Yanis Mardel (far right), interviewing (from the left) Peter Becker – Classic
Communications Spokesperson for Mercedes-Benz Heritage, Simon Cundey – Chairman of Henry Poole & Co –
and Marcus Breitschwerdt, CEO of Mercedes-Benz Heritage.
Those same workshops, once dedicated only to keeping cars alive internally, eventually opened to the public. Today, customers bring their vehicles back to Mercedes for first-class maintenance and restoration.
Simon sees a natural connection between that approach and Savile Row. “From the moment Marcus and I met, we shared a passion for each other’s crafts. A heritage brand like Mercedes resonates with what we do in tailoring. Henry Poole created this craft, and we continue to keep it alive on the Row. On site, we still make trousers, jackets and waistcoats by hand. Like Mercedes, we look forward to future developments while safeguarding heritage. That is what brings us together.”
Listening to both visionaries, I remarked that tailoring, with its focus on creation, might seem different from automotive heritage, which appears centred on restoration. To explore the link, I mentioned the Mercedes-Benz C111, the experimental prototype first shown in 1969 that, despite never reaching production, remains an icon of design. Marcus’s eyes lit up.
“It used completely new materials, new ways to package cars, and it was one of the rare Mercedes models with a rear engine,” he said. “As a boy, I played car card games and the C111 was always unbeatable. It reached 300 km/h, not just on paper but measured on track, and it did it without cylinders. That was unbelievable. In our business, if something remains timeless, then it has been done right. I drove the C111 in Los Angeles in 2022 and people still gathered around it asking, ‘When will it be on the market?’ If two generations later a creation feels like tomorrow, then we have succeeded.”
After Marcus’s story of the C111, I turned to Simon and asked, “Would you say that the dinner jacket is Henry Poole’s own C111?”
The significance for the future of men’s fashion of the dinner jacket “invented” by Henry Poole & Co under request of Edward VII is comparable to the creation of the Mercedes C111 in 1969. Its futuristic design and cutting-edge technologies showcased at the time the potential potential for both speed and durability in different applications within the automotive sector.
“That is a good way of putting it. The dinner jacket evolved from the longtail coat that gentlemen wore for every occasion. Even Edward VII, dining alone, had to go through the ritual of wearing one. He asked Henry Poole to design something more relaxed. That became the dinner suit, which travelled across the Atlantic and was adopted by the so-called Tuxedo boys in New York. It remains one of the epitomes of gentlemanly dress today. In fact, Marcus and I will both be wearing one tonight. So yes, the dinner jacket is our C111 to some respects.”
Absolutely,” Marcus added with a grin, “as long as it is not orange!” – a playful nod to the original C111 prototypes, which were famously painted in a bold metallic shade of this colour.
The Concours of Elegance has always been about more than just cars. Since its founding in 2012 at Windsor Castle, and later at Hampton Court Palace, it has become a stage for visionaries to show how the past informs the future. Earlier this year, Mercedes-Benz UK Ltd. received a Royal Warrant of Appointment to His Majesty The King, a recognition of its longstanding relationship with the Royal Household. Henry Poole, meanwhile, has held Royal Warrants for more than 200 years. When these two houses came together at Hampton Court, it was not simply about tailoring or motoring but rather about heritage to be worn, driven, and carried forward.
Author: Yanis Mardel
