I was in Belgium at the van de Velde MB wrecking yard (the largest one in Europe) on Thursday morning visiting the owner. A large truck and a couple of vans drove into the yard, and a bunch of Africans got out. They started speaking English among themselves, so I went over and started talking to them. They were there for their twice-yearly trip to purchase, for next to nothing, scrap engines out of wrecked European and American Benzes that van de Velde has shipped from the States to Europe. They loaded some 25 engines onto the truck and then took off, headed for the docks to load them into a shipping container for the trip back to Nigeria.

I asked them what they do with the engines -- they rebuild/repair them in Nigeria and put them into various Benz sedans and trucks, most with over 1 million miles on the chassis, to keep them going. They told me that the 123 is the best chassis, followed by the 126, for doing this. They will put anywhere from 3-5 engines in the chassis over their service life. They have very ingenious ways of servicing and repairing these engines on a shoestring. They prefer the non-electronic engines, and diesels and 103 motors are most preferred.

They also put the Benz diesel engines in other non-Benz cars and trucks as well, becuase they last longer and work better than the other makes of engines.

Cheers,
Gerry

Here's a photo of the truck getting loaded up with engines....