If your friends all fly Sikorskys and you must make amends, plead with the Lord to buy you a Eurocopter EC145 outfitted in "Mercedes-Benz style" with leather and wood. Then laugh heartily at those sad working-rich folks flying generic helicopters.
The concept of a "Mercedes-Benz style" helicopter was introduced last year at the European Business Aviation Convention and Exhibit (EBACE) and apparently the idea found enough takers to interest both Benz and Eurocopter to pursue the joint venture.
"Mercedes-Benz style" allows the brand to share its designers and license their name/work/aesthetic to yacht makers, ateliers, appliance manufacturers. Whatever they want. Smartly, they've started near the top of the transportation food chain where parent company Daimler has few conflicts.
Eurocopter's EC145 is a workhorse vehicle used for passenger transportation, medical transport, and other missions that require a small craft with a large space. In maximum passenger configuration it can move eight people, making it more like the R-Class of the skies. Remove three chairs and it's an E-Class. Remove another three and it's an S-Class. Remove the roof and it's no longer a helicopter.
Designers in the MB Advances Design Studio in Italy added the custom cabin with wood flooring, soft-touch plastics, comfortable leather seats, and other typically Benz features to remake the vehicle in the true Mercedes-Benz style.
Is it too much to ask for an AMG version?