We’ll never know what Janis Joplin would have thought of the latest money-making scheme from Mercedes-Benz.On October 4th, 1970, three days after recording her a cappella song Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz?, the Lord called home the heroin-addicted artist. As for Mercedes-Benz, it has a new offer for owners of its classic cars: an official birth certificate.For just €130, the company will scour their “historical archive records” and issue you with a document on high-quality certificate paper in a “specially-designed presentation folder”. Because – did no one tell you? – “your Mercedes-Benz is more than a vehicle: it has a documented origin”.The information on the certificate will include body style, shipping date, paint finish and interior trim. The offer extends only for owners of Mercedes-Benz passenger cars manufactured between January 1st, 1986 and December 31st, 2010.It “does not constitute a certificate of authenticity, valuation report, proof of ownership or technical appraisal”, the company says. Nor does it “provide any statement regarding the current condition, present-day originality, authenticity, roadworthiness, eligibility for registration or value of the vehicle or any individual vehicle components”.It’s all part of a wider push to mark the 140th anniversary of Mercedes-Benz. The company views as its own birth certificate the patent numbered DRP 37435. It was issued on January 29th, 1886, to Carl Benz for a “gas-powered vehicle”.Not everything has gone the company’s way during the birthday push. News of a luxury watch collaboration with Swiss company IWC Schaffhausen was overshadowed by a US class-action lawsuit from Mercedes owners who say the brand badges on car seats, once left in direct sunlight, actually brand them.Amid senior executive departures are ongoing issues around what was once the chief Mercedes selling point: reliability. One leading car website noted this week that even what it considered the company’s most reliable C-class has known recall issues over seatbelts, fuel pump reliability and “the active braking system triggering for no reason”.As China makes inroads into the European market, Mercedes-Benz’s net profit slumped by half last year to €5.3 billion.Meanwhile, Chinese customers are shunning the once-beloved Mercedes at home. Given the company sold just 1,153 units in China in the first half of 2026, some think the time is looming not for a Mercedes birth but death certificate. Even if Janis had lived, it is unlikely she would have wanted the document. She described her Mercedes song, written in half an hour in a bar, as a “song of great social and political import”. It was less a shopping list and more a satire on consumerism. And, for the record, she drove a second-hand Porsche.