Secret Mercedes Museum – the ultimate Benz Car Cave?

Secret Mercedes Museum – the ultimate Benz Car Cave? Jonny Smith is invited for a tour of a stunning private museum entirely populated by classic Mercedes.

The man behind this beautiful obsession is Danny Lucas who, as you can imagine, is nothing short of Mercedes mad. Despite being called Lucas, he’s clearly more of a Bosch electrics man. This place is not a public museum, it is a completely private Car Cave that exists in plain sight behind blank roller shutter doors. 

Danz Benz is the name of his collection, and Danny has channelled his adoration for classic Mercs and business of shop fitting to create a space like Jonny has never seen outside of Stuttgart.

Open the door and we are greeted by resin floors, vivid spotlights and rows of curated cars from the 1960s to the 1990s. Actually, the earliest is 1880s, because Danny even has a functioning replica of the first car – the patented 1886 Carl Benz  “vehicle powered by a gas engine”.

This was a very special shoot, because Jonny was granted full access to the museum for the day. Danny’s enthusiasm for the cars he grew up seeing and aspiring to own bled through in every conversation.

Each car in the museum was chased down and bought for its condition or backstory. Danny didn’t go down the predictable AMG path, instead he picked immaculate examples with odd specifications or back stories.

He has Sir Stirling’s 1990 SL500, the founder of the Jubilee Clip’s S-class 450SEL, a 1970s SLC rally car that rekindled Merc’s racing division (more of which in a future episode), a line of early SLs and a mezzanine full of ’80s Mercs.

This is how many of us dream of presenting our worshipped favourite machines, yet Danny ensures they are all on the button and road legal. He can even get any of them out within 20 minutes.








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