Mercedes-Benz Bicycle Selling For Outrageous Price

We have a love/hate relationship with tacky retail items branded with our favorite automotive monikers and sold at markups so high that they should be illegal. But even in that realm, the price Mercedes-Benz is charging for an AMG Petronas Formula One team-branded bicycle is outright insanity. Stay tuned to see why.
 

How does an engineless bicycle of any kind reach high four figures in price in the first place? Well, leave to Mercedes-Benz to find a way to overengineer the thing as much as possible.
 

According to the official literature on f1authentics.com, one of the few places you can actually buy this bike, its construction consists of “a bespoke chassis that utilizes the latest in aerodynamic design, produced exclusively for the project.” Furthermore, the description says that the bike was made with “componentry and exotic materials commonly found in high-performance cars including the handmade German Alcantara carbon fiber saddles.”
 

The bike also sports limited edition Pirelli tires, just in case it wasn’t exclusive enough. Oh, and it’ll take 12 weeks to construct, unlike the 20 minutes it takes to buy a bicycle from a reputable brand with a credit card and have enough left over to buy a used hatchback to transport the bike home again.
 

In a nutshell, this was a standard road bike made unnecessarily exclusive by using expensive materials and quality undeserving of finding their way onto something as mundane as a bicycle. To be precise, costly and high-quality bicycles do exist and are well deserving of their price. But it’s clear to most sensible people that this is not the way such an expensive bike should be sold.
 
The price for all this ham-fisted and out-of-touch display of automotive corporate branding? $8,050.00 of your hard-earned money, that’s the price. That’s not even including the extra shipping charge for large items, mind you. Nevertheless, the 12 weeks it takes for the bike to arrive should at least give you plenty of time to rethink your life choices.