The Ockhuisen Mercedes-Benz Collection
The Collection has grown since the year 1964, the year in which I bought my first Mercedes-Benz, to an almost complete overview of Mercedes-Benz automobiles from the period 1945/2011.
My passion for the brand Mercedes-Benz
Nico Ockhuisen explains:
I mainly collect non-restored vehicles but my approach is usually to sell the less desirable models and keep the better ones for my collection. Nico Ockhuisen gets his vehicles from all over the world and continues. I have a worldwide network. For example, this 1957 Ponton was parked in a widow’s garage for nineteen years and driven for only two years. And so every car has its own story. Just like my Mercedes-Benz 220D from a pensioner from Freiburg. He drove it to his holiday home near Lake Constance twice a year and occasionally parked the car on blocks to run the engine. This allowed me to buy the car practically unused. Sometimes I think my passion for the brand helps convince people to sell their car to me because they know their car is in good hands.
How it started!
When I was ten I got my first experience behind the wheel of a Mercedes. Later, when I was twelve years old, I visited the Mercedes-Benz museum in Stuttgart with my uncle. I was 17 when I bought my first own Mercedes-Benz. It was a W136, type 170 SV from 1954. This would be the first car in a serie of Mercedes-Benz vehicles from the years 1933 to 2011.
Mr. Nico Ockhuisen was driven from a young age by a deep fascination with engineering, design, and the exceptional quality of Mercedes-Benz. In 1964, at just 17 years old, he purchased his first Mercedes — not just a car, but the beginning of a lifelong passion. What motivated him was not only the joy of driving or the brand’s luxurious image, but above all the timeless craftsmanship and technological innovation that Mercedes-Benz represented in the automotive world.
Ockhuisen saw each Mercedes as a piece of heritage — history on wheels. His first purchase was likely a model from the 1950s, a period in which Mercedes reinvented itself after World War II as a pioneer of both elegance and reliability. For a young collector at the time — in postwar Europe — owning such a car was not only a statement, but a clear expression of appreciation for German engineering excellence.
That first purchase marked the beginning of a systematic collection, with a strong focus on originality, historical significance, and mechanical condition. What started as youthful admiration evolved into a unique collection of more than 130 Mercedes-Benz automobiles, each one telling part of the brand’s story between 1938 and 2020 — from pre-war icons to modern classics.
In short, it was a combination of youthful idealism, aesthetic appreciation, technical curiosity, and a visionary sense of heritage preservation that led Nico Ockhuisen to purchase his first Mercedes-Benz, laying the foundation for one of the most remarkable private collections of the marque.
Mercedes Benz W136, type 170 SV from 1954.
