The Saudi Royals Ride In Benzes and Escalades, Not Audis

Notwithstanding Remy’s hugely popular Saudis in Audis rap video, it appears that Saudi Arabian King Salman and his entourage prefer Stuttgart and Detroit to Ingolstadt.

The King and his retinue arrived at Andrews Air Force Base on Thursday, flying in on four Boeing 747 airliners for a state visit with President Obama. A fleet of Mercedes-Benz S Class sedans, Cadillac Escalade SUVs, a couple M-B Sprinter vans and what looks like one International school bus were awaiting Salman and his attendants. Carol Lee, the White House correspondent for the Wall Street Journal tweeted out the photo above.

I count at least 32 S Classes and 23 Escalades. There’s no word if they are owned/leased by the Saudi embassy or if they were rented for the event. If purchased, the Saudis are at least keeping some of that money in the Gulf, as a Kuwaiti sovereign investment fund owns about 7% of Daimler AG, Mercedes-Benz’s parent company.

Not counting the AMG models, the big Mercs get between 18 and 20 mpg, and the Caddy SUVs get just 16 to 17 mpg. I suppose that makes them gas guzzlers by today’s standards but I’m sure that Salman and his crew won’t run out of gas money for the trip. Even as the price of petroleum has plummeted in response to the Saudis flooding the market with crude oil to retrieve market share from and put pressure on frackers in North America, the House of Saud is still making big bucks. At $2.67/gallon currently in Washington D.C., they will, however, be paying more than five times the 48 cents per gallon they are used to paying for gasoline back home.

Ronnie Schreiber edits Cars In Depth, a realistic perspective on cars & car culture and the original 3D car site. If you found this post worthwhile, you can get a parallax view at Cars In Depth. If the 3D thing freaks you out, don’t worry, all the photo and video players in use at the site have mono options. Thanks for reading – RJS