Marcus Breitschwerdt carries the calm assurance of a man whose task is nothing short of guarding 138 years of history. “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.” 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. 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. 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?” “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.” For the full editorial, head over to i-m-magazine.com. Photographed by Michel Ginsberg