Yeah, he liked his Mercedes, that he bought in '72, so much that he gave his wife that one in '75 and bought another new one for himself. The 450SE was a bit spartan, but compared to the crap coming out of Detroit in the early seventies, they were well put together, had decent materials (I think they were still putting Benz-Tex in the 450SE's and SL's at that time) and with the fuel injected small V-8 they moved out and ran much better that the cars from Detroit at that time. One of my aunt's had a 1976 Mercedes 450 SL that I would take to agency for her, and actually drove off and on for a few years, to be honest I didn't think much of it. In those days the Mercedes had the same reputation among enthusiasts the Lexus's have today "they were boring to drive and had no sole." Of course at that time I had my Lamborghini 350 GT and my Jag XJ6 both of which.
were far better driving cars than the Mercedes of that day.
In those days if you drove thru or parked in Beverly Hills the place was literally lousy with Jags, Sevilles, Merc 450SE's and 450SL's, of course there was the occasional Silver Shadow and Corniche (that belonged to Zsa Zsa Gabor (the Kim Kardashian of that decade, and other showoff Hollywood types), but the Mercs and Jags were really ubiquitous, not only on Rodeo Drive but in all the better residential areas of Southern California.
Same was true on the East Coast. I remember visiting my sister in Princeton, N.J. and interspersed with a plethora of green Volvo wagons (with their two child seats in place in the rear passenger seat) were plenty of Mercedes. And when I visited friends in Greenwich, Connecticut same mix of Volvo wagon and Mercedes! This was the time when Cadillac, despite its' success with the Seville, moved down market (not in price, but in clientèle) The large Detroit sedans were still popular in the Midwest, South and West, especially outside the really large cities. Let's face the folks on the Coasts had begun to look for quality, handling and the prestige of a European car.
I do think that, aside from a bias toward buying American, people in the more rural areas of the country had real problems getting good service for the European cars in their own vicinity.