I doubt the car was anything but an old lady's low milage Merc bought new.

Aren't there any other people in here who are police, fire and rescue, or EMT's?? It's not uncommon to find cars cut in half in major accidents, and they sometimes seem to have been cut with a knife. It's bizarre and unexpected, certainly, but not unusual no matter the make.

Unibody cars have no frame structure, per se, and are constructed in pieces. The joints between pieces are natural points of seperation and this one doesn't look unusual at all.

Late manufacture cars built under the more stringent side impact requirements do seem to do better. Back then there was limited attention paid to the damage occuring in side impact events.

It likely was done by side impact with the wooden pole from the resting places of the pieces.

this is coming from a brief stint in a body shop in AK, over a decade ago.

there are stipulations on what can be fixed, such as if an A arm is crushed, that is not supposed to be a repairable.
of course, one could just cut and weld a new one in, maybe. prolly not exactly legal.

as far as owning a car that was welded together- like this -no way.

__________________
1984 123.193 372,xxx miles, room for Seven.

1999 Dodge Durango Cummins 4BTAA 47RE 5k lb 4x4 getting 25+mpgs, room for Seven.

I agree the two parts of cars welded together does happen. On the otherhand mercedes floors and rockers etc can be so comprimised with rust there is nothing much really there. If the floor area separated and then the roof panel tore it might be a possibility. I remember a friend of mine dropped by and asked me to weld a replacement shock/spring tower in his wifes car. I called him back to come have a look himself. There was hardley any metal left but mostly only oxide between the paint and the undercoat. This was a rear tower and I found there was no real amount of unibody floor metal found all the way to the firewall. Superficially it looked not bad at all. .Until you probed it that is . Anyways he found someone else to patch in that tower after I told him the car was finished . His wife was killed in it not too long afterwards. The car just folded up on her when hit. That mercedes was in a heavy rustbelt area as well and an older car. Another thought was the inertial of the hit. If the other car was going around a hundred miles an hour the mercedes weight might work against it. Very hard to accelerate the mercedes mass becomes a thought. The metal might have just given up or torn under the almost instantainious stress. If you think about it you have seen cars torn apart in photos many times. Most of the metal is fairly thin gauge really. Even with all the engineering to stiffen it an engineer might not calculate a major stress such as occured into his calculations. No engineer is probably going to try to engineer a production car for events like this. The build cost alone would probably eliminate it even as a thought. Wonder if the angle of impact might have been slightly offset to favour a semi major rearward push. That is after the car had engaged the mercedes by driving into centre structure area. Maybe some more details of this accident will be posted later. Of course I am probably wrong here. Too bad the innocent party had to expire over it.

I dunno, Guys ... it looks too clean ... perhaps the tow crew cut it apart to clear it from the telephone/power pole ... so they wouldn't have to drop the pole ... the roof area and the bottom side cuts look too straight - and, without a lot of stretching ...

Don't ya think the pole would have sustained more damage?

I don't see any fluids .... no tire marks, nothing on the curb area ...

Maybe the car was damaged elsewhere and then the back portion was stored in the median to get it out of the way? Again, I don't see any tracks of any sort - the grass doesn't even look damaged ...

Just doesn't add up ...

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George Stephenson
1991 350 SDL (200K and she ain't bent, yet)
former 2002 E320 4Matic Wagon - good car
former 1985 300 CD - great car
former 1981 300 TD - good car
former 1972 280 SEL - not so good car
a couple of those diesel Rabbits ...40-45 mpg

Any pics of the Saturn? I would expect for such a thing to happen the Saturn would have to have been doing 100mph if not more. At those speeds there should be parts of it everywhere. But there should be a ball of Saturn somewhere with human remains. That W126's looks really clean, considering its an old lady she probably had it a long time. I bet the force of the accident drove it into a tree and split it.

Also the jaws of life ect can do that without much trouble. I have seen it done before with an early 80's Buick. Usually they just cut the roof off, they wouldn't cut it in half unless they had to, takes longer. With the jaws you can have the roof off of any car real fast.


Tragic accident none the less, I hope the find the other guy and give him 20 years.

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2016 Corvette Stingray 2LT
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200

Here's how a 190 holds up against extreme side impact crashes. Similar area of impact, too.

....

Wait a second. The DNS is kind of inappropriate.

Second try...

Attached Thumbnails

 

That's exactly what I'd expect out of a W126........maybe less damage for the same impact.

You could hit the vehicle in the side with an Amtrak train and it would not split in half.........

I have a theory. correct me if im wrong.

Say the saturn hits the mercedes and sends it flying. It then proceeds to jump the curb and wrap its self around the telephone pole. The pole is in the middle of the car so the firemen simply cut the car in two, to spare the pole . The back half is then dragged backwards, hence the slight line in the grass,and on to the street to be towed away. The trunk drags the whole time leaving the two slight marks on the asphalt.

Look around the pole where the forward section is sitting.

The grass is pristine. No sign that any firemen were working there. No sign of the aft end of the vehicle being dragged to the street. The grass should be trashed..........it isn't.

see if ya can get some more pics of that one bodhi

That pic of the 190 is exactly how I would expect a 126 to look in an accident like that....and like Brian said, probably a little less crushed.

__________________
-diesel is not just a fuel, its a way of life-
'15 GLK250 Bluetec 118k - mine - (OC-123,800)
'17 Metris(VITO!) - 37k - wifes (OC-41k)
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'13 ML350 Bluetec - 95k - dad's (OC-98k)
'01 SL500 - 103k(km) - dad's (OC-110,000km)
'16 E400 4matic Sedan - 148k - Brothers (OC-155k)

it is interesting that there is no fuel spillage under the rear section. and the rear seat bottom lying there in the street, it looks as if there was no damage to it, which doesn't make sense with this type of accident.

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71 220D 169K wrecked
83 240D 118K sweet 4 speed
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84 300d (loaner to my sister) 189K
79 300SD (partswagen)
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69 250S newest project 54K

That 190 pic reminds me of the crashes I saw all over the place in Kuwait - they have a ton of high speed crashes over there due to lack of enforcement and bad technique - they just leave the hulks at the side of the road until all investigations are over.

John

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John Hughes, was in Landstuhl, Germany but currently in San Antonio, TX


1978 280CE Astral Silver now 59,xxx miles and counting "Silber-Kugel"
1986 300E Black Pearl Metallic 143,xxx miles 5-spd daily driver w/ blk leather "Schwarz-Schönheit"
1989 190E 2.6 (euro) 5-spd Desert Taupe 112,xxx kms Had to leave behind in Germany!!! "Helga"
1983 300D Pastel Beige now 312,xxx + miles SOLD

OBK#24

Ugh, can't find any more info right now. I hope they pursue an update. Unfortunately I work in the sports dept. So I don't know the reporters well or have contact with the police. That photo is the only one in our system, and it's from a free-lancer so I suspect it was the only one sent to us. Damn, I REALLY want to know the details of this. I'll see what I can find out in the office tomorrow. I'm at work right now, but it's a "skeleton crew" on Sunday's, not all bustling with the writers and such. I've searched our archives but can't find anything, writing or photos ...

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1987 300D, arctic white/palomino--314,000 miles
1978 240D 4-speed, Euro Delivery, light ivory/bamboo--370,000 miles
2005 Jeep Liberty CRD Limited, light khaki/slate--140,000 miles
2018 Chevy Cruze diesel, 6-speed manual, satin steel metallic/kalahari--19,000 miles
1982 Peugeot 505 diesel, 4-speed manual, blue/blue, 130,000 miles
1995 S320, black/parchment--34,000 miles (Dad's car)