When Kendall Jenner attended the 2022 Met Gala in a Prada dress with a huge, flowing skirt, special transportation was required to get to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A sedan wouldn't do, nor would an SUV – walking in the dress was a challenge; sitting, impossible. The solution: Ms. Jenner would be driven standing up in a Mercedes-Benz Sprinter van.
To ease her anxiety about being late, Ms. Jenner relieved herself in an ice bucket while standing in the van on the way to the event. “Best decision I ever made,” she said of the moment on an episode of “The Kardashians” on Hulu.
The Sprinter transporter, a towering box on wheels with a headroom of almost two and a half meters, is a direct descendant of the first motorized caravans that Karl Benz developed in 1896. (About 30 years later, he and Gottlieb Daimler founded Mercedes-Benz.) The Sprinter, which first went on sale in Europe in 1995, went on sale domestically in 2010. Last year Mercedes-Benz introduced an electric version.
The van, which can carry up to 15 passengers (or cargo), is valued by automotive enthusiasts for its build quality, reliability and versatility, and in most versions for the thrust and durability of the diesel engine.
But other people have recognized the sprinter for other reasons, including his proximity to celebrities. The van has become a preferred mode of transportation for actors, singers, athletes and “Real Housewives” and is now a staple on the roads outside of star-studded events like the Oscars and the Met Gala.
The vans have become so popular as a means of transportation to the Spring Gala in New York that demand can exceed local supply. “Sprinters are traveling from Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Miami,” said Etienne Haro, the general manager of the Mark Hotel on Manhattan's Upper East Side, where many Met Gala guests spend time both before and after the main event.
In recent years, between 50 and 70 guests from the Mark traveled to the gala, around 40 to 50 of them with sprinters. Many of these vans are rented and driven by guests' personal chauffeurs. On the day of the gala, the Mark has a team of about 30 people tracking the locations of vehicles to ensure their passengers arrive on time, Mr. Haro said.
Sprinter drivers often take advantage of the van's spacious interior to look immaculate when they arrive. “The environment, the glamor team, the stylist – anyone can come in to give the finishing touches,” Mr Haro said.
But occasionally, he added, some Sprinter passengers encountered bumps on the way to and from the gala.
“Getting out of a sprinter with a voluminous dress and high heels can be a challenge,” Haro said, citing an instance in which a Mark employee caught a Met Gala guest “in mid-air” as she fell out of a van . He recalled another guest “whose clothing was so elaborate that she could not get into her vehicle.”
Although it bears Mercedes-Benz's trident star logo, the Sprinter has an otherwise innocuous exterior that is just as attractive to some famous fans as its spacious interior.
“Our customers say, ‘The paparazzi are chasing us around; “We don't want to sit in something that sticks out like a sore thumb, like a Rolls or a Bentley,” said Howard Becker, the founder of Becker Automotive Design in Southern California, which tailors Sprinter vans and other vehicles for people like him Director Steven Spielberg, actor Mark Wahlberg and television host Steve Harvey.
“The sprinter somehow fades in,” said Mr. Becker, 75.
The starting price for a diesel van is around $50,000; Electric sprinters start at around $72,000. But models outfitted by Mr. Becker or Gabi Mashal, whose Southern California company Bespoke Coach also customizes the vans, typically cost between $350,000 and $450,000.
Their special features can include temperature-controlled reclining seats with integrated massagers, secure internet routers, state-of-the-art stereo and video systems, and onboard bathrooms for their owners.
“These people can’t use a public toilet,” said Mr. Mashal, 60, who has customized vans for singer Mark Anthony and boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr.
“The Sprinter's size and luxurious reputation are reasons it has replaced vehicles such as sedans and SUVs as the preferred rental vehicle in many versions of The Real Housewives,” said Nate Green, executive producer of The Real Housewives of Miami. . He described the sprinter as a friend of the “Housewives,” using a term for supporting characters on the show who regularly appear in episodes.
Mr. Green said his show's team also prefers sprinters because the van's cabin offers enough space for cameramen – and to film from different angles.
“That's really important,” Mr. Green said, “because sometimes 'Housewives' is more about the reaction than the actual dialogue.”
During the 18 years the reality TV franchise has run on Bravo, sprinter vans have been a place where housewives fell drunk, signed divorce papers, passionately kissed co-stars, verbally bickered and were accosted by Department of Homeland Security agents.
“When people see a Sprinter van, they know something is going to happen that is going to be iconic,” said Lisa Shannon, also an executive producer of the New York and Salt Lake City episodes of “The Real Housewives.” as a spin-off “Ultimate Girls Trip”.
Although the sprinter is closely associated with the “Housewives” franchise, he has appeared in more than 4,000 films and TV episodes. Like many characters in pop culture, it was imitated in “The Simpsons” and recently joined one of cinema's most distinctive automobile fleets: the vehicles in “Ghostbusters.”
In the latest film in the series, “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire,” which hit theaters in March, a new transport called the Ecto-Z – a black sprinter with proton pack mounts – is seen alongside the tailfinned 1959 Cadillac ambulance that known to many as Ecto-1.
Eric Reich, executive producer of “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire,” said a sprinter was chosen for the role of Ecto-Z after Mercedes-Benz and Sony, the film's distributor, held meetings to discuss product placement. He added that a sprinter like a Cadillac makes sense for transporting the Ghostbusters and their equipment because both vehicles combine “luxury and function.”
This merger has also made Sprinters popular with so-called vanlifers – people known for frolicking, traveling and sleeping in custom-made vans. Many of them document their lifestyle online, including Peter Holcombe, 51, who has spent much of the last decade with his wife Kathy, 50, and daughter Abby, 19, in four Sprinter vans from RV maker Winnebago. (The Holcombes are brand ambassadors for Mercedes-Benz and Winnebago; they purchased three of their vans at a discount.)
In their vans, the family visited all 50 states, several national parks and 19 European countries. (Last year, Abby moved out of the family vehicle and into one of her own.) The Holcombes are currently driving the Pan-American Highway, a network of roads that runs from Alaska to the southern tip of South America.
“We have covered over 400,000 miles in sprinters,” Mr Holcombe said.
Wes Siler, a backcountry camper and Outside magazine columnist in Bozeman, Montana, is less of a fan.
Mr. Siler, 43, who camps in a converted pickup truck, said the cost of buying and customizing a Sprinter for outdoor exploration was too high for what he described as little more than a “poseur setting.”
“They’re cool on Instagram,” he said. “That’s kind of the whole story.”
But Mr. Siler, who grew up in Europe, also recognizes that the van has a certain appeal. He remembered driving to his high school prom in London in a Sprinter that had been converted into a party bus.
“You couldn’t ask for a better sedan,” he said.
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