In 1809, after turning the ripe old age of 16, Sam Houston sought adventure outside his home state of Virginia and ran away from home.

His first stop was the Cherokee Nation where, it was said, he learned how to kick ass six different ways to Sunday. The experience certainly prepared him for the War of 1812, in which he cut his teeth serving in the army of General Andrew Jackson.

Moving on to another opportunity to show who was boss, he joined The Battle of Horseshoe Bend where he witnessed a fellow soldier be the first one to rush the enemy by charging over the top of a stone and log barricade, only to become a human bullseye for a barrage of Indian arrows. That didn’t deter Sam from going second.

That act of bravery was quickly rewarded by taking a sizable arrow of his own. Right to the groin. At this point, lesser men would have contemplated taking a desk job or claiming bone spurs and sitting out the rest of the conflict (to the point that he could actually sit). A barbed arrow taken in the taint would justifiably slow anyone down a step or two.

But Sam Houston was not just any man.

He turned to a fellow soldier and calmly asked him to pull the arrow out. The surprised soldier strongly suggested that Sam seek a surgeon because, after all, it was a barbed arrow. In his groin. Sam was in no mood for debate and pulled his sword on the poor lad until his request was honored.

Houston was compensated for his gallantry by being shot three more times and left for dead on the battlefield. Next morning he was discovered still breathing, put on a litter, and dragged sixty miles to the nearest fort where he was, once again, left for dead.

All of this superseded a political career that saw him become the governor of Tennessee, where he beat Ohio congressman William Stanbury nearly to death with his walking stick on the streets of Washington D.C. when being falsely accused of ethical impropriety.

Shortly thereafter, he made his way to a place called Texas where he would have, what most would agree, a substantial impact. He served as President of Texas when it was a country, and then guided it towards statehood in the US of A where he would serve as the new state’s senator.

All that to say if ol’ Sam was alive today, there is a greater than zero chance he’d choose this 1957 Mercedes-Benz 190 SL as his daily driver.

Timeless in design and polished to perfection, even the dark green leather seats look supple enough to swaddle the naughty bits of someone who had once taken one for the team in that general area. The fitted luggage in the boot would be the perfect way to carry not only his dapper wardrobe, but his important papers of state as well.

Some might argue otherwise due to the fact that, later in life, Sam took for his third wife a 21 year old minikin with whom he then produced eight children. They might suggest an SUV instead. They don’t know Sam.

No. Piloting this sweet piece of perfect German engineering is exactly what the man who has the fourth largest city in America named after him would do.

His last words were, “Texas, Margaret, Texas”. Granted, they were muffled. That middle word may have been “Mercedes”.