The car I had on my trip is a MERCEDES BENZ 230 S with a normal benzine engine. Due to it's rather heavy weight this vehicle would be quite slow if it had a diesel engine.
It's corpus is constructed by WELSCH in Mayen, Germany. I think it's very beautiful, especially with the two doors on the back, they fit the shape of the fins on the rear perfectly. It's much more elegant than the constructions by RAPPOLD, also Germany, or even the GRAZIA from Italy, these are too heavy and seem like a show-case at times.

I always wanted a MERCEDES BENZ hearse with those fins, but years ago I had to give in looking for this type of car in Austria - I bought an OPEL Record hearse which was also looking quite cool; unfortunately this car didn't make it to the next security-check and so it had to go to the tip.

A long hearseless period followed until I found him - the internet helped me a lot in doing so, as well as my contacts from the old days. Alexander Karla, he runs a hearse drivers club in Germany, sent me all kinds of announces, gave me advices of who has which car in which state and so on - getting to the point was hard for me as the distance is enormous.
Then the day of my trip to Düsseldorf approached - I drove the 1100 km from Vienna to Düsseldorf in a Slovakian tourist bus over night - a terrible trip. Alexander came to help me with the check of the car and in the end I had to have him, and home we drove the very next day.
Of course I had some administrational efforts to take - but in the end it all worked out perfectly and I had my first dream-car in my hands so to say.

And he drives wonderfully, fast if necessary and very manouvreable and it's simply cool to glide along with him wherever you are.