Yes, there’s plenty of home-brew Mercedesamino conversions around, like the one I posted here, but I didn’t know that there was a factory job of a W114 pickup. OK; so it wasn’t built at Sindelfingen, and the “La” in the ad is the clue to its origin: Argentina. There’s a long tradition of unusual body variants from there to meet local market conditions, but this is a new one to me.
I’ve never seen a Mercedes-Benz pickup truck. I’ve seen pictures of them, but never up close and personal. It’s too bad they were never sold here in North America. It would’ve showed people that Daimler-Benz were capable of doing more than just sedans and coupes. That they can build light utility vehicles.
Didn’t Mercedes sell heavy trucks in North America? They weren’t bad at those.
Mercedes never got much market share in the 60s and 70s selling medium and heavy trucks under their own banner in the US. UniMogs had some popularity with railroads and highway departments with all the vocational upfitting, but they never really got a meaningful share of the market.
Daimler in the US has grown by acquisition. In 1981 they purchased Freightliner from Consolidated Freightways, later acquiring Ford’s medium and heavy truck line (renamed Sterling) in 1997, and the Canadian offshoot of White Trucks (Western Star) in 2000.
Daimler also acquired Detroit Diesel.
Now that is a cool car/truck. I’ve been aware of MB’s trucks since I was a child, the medium duty cab-overs, the heavy road tractors you see on the news and on foreign films, the legendary Unimog(?), the recent (to our shores) Sprinter; MB just never made a light-duty truck designed for North America; our market is unique.
I can see the appeal of a Mercedes-amino/ute in South America. In Brazil, compact car-based pickups are a high percentage of the cars on the road, definitely a double digit percentage, with VW, Fiat, and Ford each mass producing them. I can imagine a wealthy Argentine cattle rancher wanting all of his vehicles to be exclusive, kind of like a wealthy American ordering a Hess & Eisenhardt Cadillac station wagon conversion during the 1950s-70s, and ordering a Mercedes-amino. That market must have been quite small and exclusive, though.
In the nineties there was a loophole in the Danish legislation that meant that not only were vans (also station wagons with their rear seats removed and a partition between the cockpit and trunk) cheaper than cars, but pick-ups were cheaper yet. This meant that quite a few W124’s, its successor which I don’t remember the code for, W126’s and W140’s were converted to pick-ups. There were even some 928’s around. The most recent popular conversion was the contemporary Firebird/Camaro. With the rear window in place, it looks like the passenger car from the outside apart from the yellow instead of white license plates.
I’ll try and do a write-up at some point.
The predecessor to the W124 was the W123 (sold in the U. S. from 1977 through the 1985 model year as the 240D, 280E (dohc cam gasoline straight 6), 300D (turbocharged after 1981), 300CD (Diesel coupe), and 300TD (turbodiesel wagon). I may be leaving something out. The W123 was the successor to the model pictured in this article; a W115 I believe.
I did see a DIY conversion of a W108 south of Houston about 12 years ago. It was sitting in front of a repair shop that must have worked primarily on Mercedes-Benz. It looks like the conversion was fairly well done but the car had been deteriorating for sometime before I saw it.
I meant “the W124 and the W124’s successor” – W210 I see now.
My bad. In my mind I put an extra comma in your sentence and thought you meant the successor to the W114, i.e. the W123. There is nothing wrong with your punctuation but only my eyes.
Yes, the W201 did succeed the W124 but only in chronology. I was fortunate to own two W124’s a sedan and a coupe. To my mind they were the best cars I ever did own or ever will own fragile head gaskets and wiring harnesses notwithstanding. Friends owned W210s and neither they nor our mutual Benz-only mechanic was too impressed with them.
I was once asked to help determine the value of a W111 wagon conversion. It was built from a 1967 230S (I owned a very nice example of the sedan at the time, thus my nickname). The car was a IMA conversion and had originally belonged to a professor at Rice University (about the closest thing to Berkely Texas ever had or will have).
By 2005 though the car was a basket case. It ran (barely) but had a lot of rust and in some bad places. It sat in an open field for many, many years. I told the then owner to list it in the Star (Mercedes-Benz Club of America’s monthly publication) as strictly a parts car.
I’ve seen pictures of the Camaro-aminos based on the 4th gen F bodies from the 80s, probably on Hooniverse so most likely in Finland. It appears to be a fiberglass insert that drops into the rear hatch opening and creates a small box and bulkhead.
One of the Danish specials i know of was the Range Rover van which was a 2 door with no back seat and fixed rear side windows instead of the usual sliding.windows.
The one I’m talking about is this one: http://www.airstream.dk/cam-97-r%F8d-sk%F8rter-82tkm-230tkr-pickup.jpg With the window/hardtop in place you can’t tell it’s not a coupé.
Regarding the Range Rover: Virtually every SUV or station wagon and a large number of hatchbacks are available like that in Denmark and have been for decades. It is due to the lower tax on vans/trucks compared to passenger cars, so many people whose children have moved out or who do not yet have children buy these.
Very interesting to see and read how other parts of the world get the job done.
I was always impressed when I saw this Benz-ute, the MB Trac. A Unimog with bigger wheels, sort of.
I am totally surprised. I haven’t even seen a picture of a Benz p’up. It’s alright though. These Benz’s are just noble appliances anyway. If you don’t have room for a Unimog just go ahead and make yourself a Mercedes Pritschenwagen.
Genau ! Playing in the sandbox, boys will be boys…
Ganz genau!
I need a back seat which is why the S10 went away. Gotta admit though that this truck is very appealing. It had me at hello.
I have seen a Benz ute roughly that model and it was a diesel, in a wrecking yard in Hobart Tasmania I assumed it was a home made from a station wagon, Now you have me wondering was it a south American refugee.
I can just picture one of these, struggling up an on ramp with a ton of gravel in the back, straining its 2.2 liter guts out to reach any kind of cruising speed. I’m sure it would get there, eventually, although it might be a long time before you could shift it into 4th gear.
IMA in Belgium and Binz (no relation to Mercedes-Benz) in Germany both converted M-B sedans into station wagons, ambulances, and hearses in the 1960’s. One or the other may have also cataloged a flower car which is close to a pickup. In fact, it would be perfect for the upwardly mobile weekend gardner.
That looks so natural for a w114. Just when I finalise my list of desired cars, something like this comes along. Life is bountiful.
Here’s a Merc-up I found in Seattle a while back. Not sure what it’s provenance is.
Side view
Fascinating…very fascinating. It’s a W114/115, but those never offered a wagon. And yet it has wagon taillights, and I assume the gate was sourced from a wagon liftgate as well. So I’m guessing this one started life as a sedan and was converted sometime after ’78? The gas filler location is also very similar to where it was relocated on the wagons, though those had it behind a door. Pretty clean work overall. The little blank rectangular badge on the fender is interesting too; wonder what it might have once said?
I like the curve of the B-pillar, similar to what GM did with the El Camino but without the corresponding trapezoidal window. Also easier to cover with vinyl/plastic/whatever that stuff is rather than finishing out the cut lines.
“Ranchenzo”?
Elcabenzo.
Ranchenzo, that’s a good one. Makes it sound suave and Latin.
Um, lets give credit to the originators, I think it’s a Benzchero
In that case it would be a Benz ute aka coupe utility (started in 1934)
IIRC Africa got M-B pickups called ” Bakkie ” ~ I’ve seen a few and would love to own one but they’re pretty much all gone or in museums now .
-Nate
That’s funny, we drink a “bakkie koffie”, a cup of coffee.
Bakkie is the South African name for a pick-up truck. It must come from the Dutch word bak (or laadbak), which in this context means a truck bed.
And “kat in ‘t bakkie” means an easy job, not there’s a cat in the truck bed.
Nate, your comment led me to this website (with great pictures) about the Mercedes Bakkie from the fifties.
http://benz-books.com/blog/572/a-mercedes-180d-called-bakkie/
The website also shows this 1956 Binz pick-up. Fintail jim already mentioned Binz.in his comment above.
That’s it ~ thanx Johannes .
Binz made hearses and ambulances too , for decades there were cheap Ponton Ambulances all over the place , all gone now .
I recently looked at a W-123 240D Hearse but although drivable the entire front end had gaping rust oles , way beyond my skill set to save , more’s the pity as I do love my Caddy S&S Fleetwood Victoria hearse…
-Nate
Thanks; made for nice breakfast reading, That’s the great thing here: I can throw up a picture, and the full story soon unfolds in the comments. Would you like to be an official Contributor?
Thanks Paul, I feel honored. It shouldn’t be too hard to come up with a story about my own Classic because that’s already in my head. It never comes even close to a curbside by the way…Then we’ll see what happens and how that one unfolds.
I’ll go to the Submissions section pretty soon and I’ll certainly do my best.
Sweet Benzie . On a related issue. In Hong Kong, during the 50s & 60s, Mercedes was the sole authorised importers of Taxis. Mercedes Potons W121 190D and W111 @200D diesels saloons were what the population rode in , in a proportion of 10 to 1 in favour of the Potons. Not bad for the ‘3rd world’. They all seem to have disappear almost overnight in the late 60s’; to be replaced by Toyotas.
Photo © Rudi Butt
Is it just me or does this picture remind you of an Amphicar? (I’d still like to have the MB p’up.)