Perhaps so, but though this is hearsay, I believe otherwise.

One of my best friends in the Mercedes owning world lives in North Hollywood, and to until about 15 years ago, was in the Hollywood music business (in the accounting end of it) and told me some amazing things he'd observed first hand on a routine basis.

On a typical weekend, for instance, some musician who was a rock star, would hold a weekend house party; and consumption of $15,000 to $20,000 worth of cocaine by him and the guests was so normal and accepted it meant nothing.

Hangers-on and drug dillers would come around all the time and ask "What can I DO for you"?; and "Is there anything I can DO for you?" along with the usual coterie of people that would say "Oh I love your work!" and "Can I have your autograph?" (I have actually eaten at restaurants on Ventura Blvd. such as "Poquito Mas" that have signs on the door saying "No asking for autographs" and "No photos please").

He told me that Tom Petty and Rod Stewart were total jerks in person; and described a huge fistfight in a bar in North Hollywood that he saw in a British pub one new years when Jeff Lynne (Electic Light Orchestra) got caught with some other girl by his OWN girlfriend that had been told he was just going there to hang out with some other musicians. It was an epic new year's day brawl.

The Rolls Royce, Land Rover, Mercedes Benz, Porsche Maserati, Lamborghini and BMW car dealers around Hollywood, Encino, Beverly Hills and Santa Monica and the Westside are instructed to ALWAYS have their sales force be super polite and deferential to sloppily dressed and unshaven or joking customers, because often as not they are Movie directors, producers, rock musicians and such, who come in on a whim, ready to buy a brand new car for cash right then on the spot. And often DO.

Crazy place, the entertainment world down there in LA.

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1991 560 SEC AMG, 199k <---- 300 hp 10:1 ECE euro HV ...

1995 E 420, 170k "The Red Plum" (sold)

2015 BMW 535i xdrive awd Stage 1 DINAN, 6k, <----364 hp

1967 Mercury Cougar, 49k

2013 Jaguar XF, 20k <----340 hp Supercharged, All Wheel Drive (sold)