I was looking at the picture of the Mercedes. It’s a used car....probably five to six years old...decked out with the ‘rims’. Looks in good condition...I’d take a guess that it’s valued at around $10,000 (my humble guess). He was obviously making some money but you don’t hear anything about his employment situation.
Judging by the trunk lid, it looks like it could be a Mercedes W124 sedan. These were built between 1984 and 1995.
There is a W124 300E on eBay right now with a "buy it now" price of $700!
(W124s were amazing cars, with maintenance requirements to match. I shopped for a used W124 at one time, but fortunately regained some of my sanity before I signed on the dotted line and wrote out the check. I have little doubt that buying a new set of "rims" would be much cheaper than fixing the A/C or the blown head gasket.)
The first think I noticed about the Merecedes is that both brake lights seemed to work fine.