GRAHAM ROBSON ATHENS TO THE ARCTIC

Does the Mercedes-Benz 190E saloon of 1982 count as a classic car? I'm sure it does today, but in the event I’m going to describe it was brand new. That was the year in which the new ‘small’ Mercedes model was first put on sale in the UK, and when the concessionaires, backing up a journalist’s whim, decided to support a nonstop run from the Mediterranean to the Arctic Circle to prove – well, nothing much apart from proving that it was a comfortable new machine in which to go anywhere!