We've watched carmakers get more and more clever (desperate?) in their wooing ways at major auto shows. But what we saw from Mercedes in Los Angeles was outright bribery. It was a messy scene: a big brown box with a hole in the side through which a trio of cheerful females were doling out Sprinkles cupcakes to hoards of hungry journalists. Crumbs were flying. Frosting was smeared across mouths. And they appeared to be swallowing it, hook, line, and sprinkles.
You can hardly blame them. Okay, us. Sprinkles is the Beverly Hills cupcakerie that anyone who knows anything about single-serving cakes credits with their modern popularization as a chic dessert. Its little shop still runs a line down Santa Monica Boulevard every day. An Angeleno myself, I have waited in it. Many times.
Excepting the scrum that flocked the van after the Mercedes-Benz press conference, there was no line at the "Sprinklesmobile." The mobile cupcake dispenser is a Mercedes-Benz Sprinter (most definitely not a Dodge), designed by Sprinkles' architect Andrea Lenardin and customized by West Coast Customs. Just trays and trays of hedonistic red-velvet-chocolate-marshmallow-vanilla-marzipan-strawberry-on-strawberry action—1500 fit in the custom van at a time. And so, from that very side window, this author ate no fewer than four of Sprinkles' delectable creations (red velvet is the best) over the two media days of last week's show. While we stand by our bias-free Mercedes-Benz coverage, consider this blog post our token of full disclosure.
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