But you're missing the point - the question is not whether it had a purpose when the car was new but whether it can be removed on a 15 year old car. Obviously it can be. Way over 99 percent of the cars on the road over the last century have done fine without a belly pan. BTW, what do suppose changed on the 140 body - that for all those good reasons it had to have one, then suddenly it didn't need to have one. But the parallel doesn't work on the car in question. As to MB's altruism it's just a good thing they don't sell swamp land, because there'd be a lot of buyers.