http://www.thetartcart.com/videos/watch.aspx?Media=173

What kind of benz is that ambulance built from ?

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1985 300D : the clean one 180k miles - Now passed onto my parents.
2000 E39 M5
2002 e46 330xit
1991 mustang notch (project)
1970 chevelle (project)

yes, there were 123 ambulances made from station wagens

Looked like it was built off a W124 to me....but you had to look fast!

www.mbspares.com.au

The "ODD" collection

This veers off into another area completely!!!

In the USA it's mostly about big old Cadillacs, sideloaders, endloaders, "combination" ambulance/hearse vehicles, Miller Meteor, Superior, S & S etc. See HEARSE.com for the best website going, on these. The owner of the site, Zack, in Colorado, has a group of restored Hearse and Ambulance drivers in a club, and some of them got annoyed by some Fraternity boys partying in a cemetary near the University, so they came roaring into the cemetary at midnight, in a convoy of ambulances and hearses, with wailers and lights on, and REALLY scared those bad boys!!

Someone out here in Northern California had a purple hearse, painted with flames, and a chrome hangman's noose in the back window.

And another hearse, mentioned in the San Francisco Chronicle, had an unforgettable personalized license plate on it: " 4U 1DAY "

The Professional Car Society (PCS) take their rides seriously, and tend to frown on macabre displays...(usually )

These cars were built to a very high standard. So of course were the Mercedes. But you don't see the Mercedes hearses and ambulances in the USA, though. But the Sprinter vans might someday give the Ford E350 vans a run for the ambulance business.

Jim B.

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1991 560 SEC AMG, 199k <---- 300 hp 10:1 ECE euro HV ...

1995 E 420, 170k "The Red Plum" (sold)

2015 BMW 535i xdrive awd Stage 1 DINAN, 6k, <----364 hp

1967 Mercury Cougar, 49k

2013 Jaguar XF, 20k <----340 hp Supercharged, All Wheel Drive (sold)

...are not made from station waggons but from chassis.

They are available as short and as long wheelbase. You can still order the F 211 an have it converted by Binz.

"These cars were built to a very high standard. So of course were the Mercedes. "

Well. Actually not They chassis were pretty much hand built in Sindelfingen and shipped on an open trailer to the Binz. Binz finished the cars by glueing fiberglass-parts on the chassis and they did some rather artistic welding (not to exactly high standards...)

Binz (or any other converter) was responsible for the final paint job and rust protection. Most ambulances do have an unpainted engine bay and the rust protection was done pretty slobbish.

That didn't matter much, because they either were garaged most of the time or they were used for transport and clogged 100 k miles a year.

Kind regards
Eberhard

Why don't they use a Sprinter or something like a 406D as an ambulance? It can't be cheaper to hand build a wagon on a passenger car frame.

Sixto

old james bond movies had benz ambulances.

Because in the old days, when the "hoch-lang"-concept of ambulances on car-frames was introduced, there were no Sprinters. And the 406 wasn't exactly the vehicle you would choose to get anywhere decently fast.

Today most ambulances are indeed build on Sprinter and alike and the "hoch-lang" are used for patient transfer from hospital to hospital. That's why it doesn't matter if corrosion takes over the conversion, because they usually clock something about 100 kmiles a year.

Kind regards
Eberhard