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You’d have to hold significant power and influence to have a statue built in your honour. And while you might be familiar with the likes of Mount Rushmore in the US, or Christ the Redeemer in Brazil, this small Croatian town is honouring its history with a Mercedes-Benz statue.
Located in Imotski – a town approximately 460km south of Croatia’s capital city, Zagreb – Croatian sculptor Roko Drzislav Rebic carved a life-sized Mercedes-Benz W115 sedan statue out of limestone.
If you’re scratching your head wondering what connects the German luxury car maker to this rural Croatian town, you’re not alone.
As previously reported by Drive, the Mercedes statue was created in honour of the thousands of migrants who left Imotski and migrated to other European countries like Germany to work and financially support their families.
The Mercedes-Benz W115 – colloquially known as the Mercedes Minika – became a status symbol for the returning migrants, with the car representing a migrant worker's financial success after finding work in other countries.
Ivan Topic, a local car club organiser who owns eight Mercedes models, previously told global news outlet Reuters, “Our fathers and grandfathers moved away, mostly to West Germany at the time to earn something”.
“To show they have earned some money, they would drive back home in their Mercedes car. Out of gratitude to them, we are building this monument,” Topic explained.
In Australia, the W115 was available as a sedan and coupe, with seven petrol and a further four diesel powertrain options available during its production run between 1968 and 1976, in which almost two million examples were manufactured.
While the petrol-powered W115 garnered market success due to its reliability, the diesel variants – sold as the 200d, 220d, 240d, and 300d – gained a reputation for being virtually bullet-proof, with the car proving to be a particular favourite among affluent families living in rural areas during that era.
Though Australia is home to an abundance of automotive historical museums, the closest sculptures we might have to a national car monument reside in New South Wales.
The first is this Holden ute – believed to be a Holden FB – built out of scrap metal objects found around farmland in Deniliquin, a rural town in NSW close to the Victorian border.
Known as ‘Reutilise’, the sculpture is currently located near the Peppin Heritage Centre on George Street, Deniliquin, and commemorates Australia’s love affair with the iconic ute.
According to the NSW Government, the immortalised pick-up is a “homage to utes everywhere, and a celebration of the ingenuity of farmers and regional people across Australia”.
Meanwhile, this art installation, famously known as ‘Utes in the paddock’, is as Australian as a meat pie. Located in Condobolin – a town located in central west NSW – Graham Pickles and his wife, Jana, came up with the concept after driving along the famous Route 66 in 2007.
According to a June 2021 report by the ABC, the pair took inspiration from a similar sculpture in Amarillo, Texas, where 10 Cadillacs were graffitied and partially buried into the ground.
Pickles said the Texas landscape and local geography “was very much like our farm at Ootha [in Central West NSW]”.
“We were just imagining if we could get a collection of Holden utes and mount them properly out of the dirt at different angles and get Australian artists to use them as a canvas and paint a history of Australia,” Graham told the ABC.
The local Lachlan Shire Council said the Holdens were donated “by residents from the area who caught the ‘utes bug’” after catching wind that some of Australia’s most famous outback artists were donating their time to create the monument.
The 20-strong ute sculpture – which encompasses numerous Holden variants like the WB, Ute EJ62, VS and HX, features iconic Australian imagery stemming from homegrown classics like Vegemite, Bundberg rum, Holden, Aboriginal art, native flora and fauna, as well as a portrait of famous comic Dame Edna sitting on the dunny.
A full list of the artwork showcased on the 'Utes at Paddock' art installation is available here. If you're thinking about making the trip in real life, the sculptures are located on Lachlan Valley Way, Condobolin.
We'd like to hear from you. If Australia were to build a national monument of one vehicle, would it be a Holden Commodore, an AU Ford Falcon, or something else? Vote down below and let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Ethan Cardinal graduated with a Journalism degree in 2020 from La Trobe University and has been working in the fashion industry as a freelance writer prior to joining Drive in 2023. Ethan greatly enjoys investigating and reporting on the cross sections between automotive, lifestyle and culture. Ethan relishes the opportunity to explore how deep cars are intertwined within different industries and how they could affect both casual readers and car enthusiasts.
