Universal, the original Mercedes Station wagon

1974 Mercedes Benz 220D Binz Station Wagon  on Bring a trailer

• GET THE EMAIL
• SUBMISSIONS
• SERVICES
• GEAR
• ABOUT
• RSS
  
  

November 13, 2012 — German / Project / Under $20k — 43 comments 

1974 Mercedes Benz 220D Binz Station Wagon

This 1974 Mercedes Benz 220D station wagon is likely a conversion by Binz, and was abandoned by a pilot in a Florida airplane hangar for many years. It was made to run in 2006, and driven until 2008, but now does not run or drive. We’d love to convert it to an MB service vehicle like this one in Europe. Find it here on eBay in Florida with a $7500 Buy-it-Now. Special thanks to BaT reader Ted K. for this submission!

Related Stories

   

Please observe Bring a Trailer's commenting rules.

1. KingZut

   November 13, 2012 at 9:57 am    0 or Flag as not constructive 

   Vaguely hearse-y styling… the windows are all over the place and oddly shaped.

   Overall, I think I like it, but am also a bit confused… oddest lines I have ever seen on a car
2. KingZut

   November 13, 2012 at 9:57 am    0 or Flag as not constructive 

   Wait, I take that back! not the oddest, but definitely odd choices…
3. DRV

   November 13, 2012 at 10:07 am    0 or Flag as not constructive 

   I like it’s oddness, but can’t even fathom how slow it must be. Many ways to improve and use this though..
4. scot

   November 13, 2012 at 10:20 am    4 or Flag as not constructive 

   ~ i’ve seen very few Mercedes’ with bench front seats.
5. Zora Arkus Dumbkopf

   November 13, 2012 at 10:31 am    4 or Flag as not constructive 

   A 220D auto with what is likely a heavier station wagon body – I think ‘glacially’ slow would be a massive understatement…

   Given that it was abandoned by a previous owner and has been sitting in what looks like a rural & swampy area in FL and more than likely needs atonne ‘o work, I’d say the BIN price is decidedly crackpipe, even with the rarity of the body.
6. eggsalad

   November 13, 2012 at 10:31 am    1 or Flag as not constructive 

   Woohoo! It even has an 8-track!
7. CharlieO

   November 13, 2012 at 10:37 am    2 or Flag as not constructive 

   I doubt that it would be worth much more than $7500 after a complete restoration.
8. Steve in Orange

   November 13, 2012 at 10:38 am    0 or Flag as not constructive 

   Former airport taxi?
9. tomw

   November 13, 2012 at 10:40 am    6 or Flag as not constructive 

   Parked for 15 years. Non-runner.Been through Hurricane Charlie. $7,500.00. What could possibly go wrong?
10. Lorenzo

    November 13, 2012 at 10:40 am    4 or Flag as not constructive 

    rare? check
    ugly? check
11. Henry J

    November 13, 2012 at 10:42 am    0 or Flag as not constructive 

    That would seem a great candidate for repair and conversion to bio-diesel.

    Having lived in Germany ten years and having the hobby of inspecting cars especially in the back of used car lots I can tell you the average older Mercedes is equiped very plainly. Only in the US do most Mercedees and BMWs have all the luxury equipment and high initial prices.

    In the early 1980s many new Mercedes and BMWs sold new were lower level models not sold in the US with smaller engines and very few “options.”

    I also recall reading articles about 1984 when the first of the Mercedes 190 sedans were about a uear old. The German Taxi Drivers publicized a protest that the 190s were not holding up to Taxi use as the older plain-jane Mercedes 230 and older body styles had. In particular they said the seats were wearing out in year old taxis.

    So that has led me to the long held thought that if you want a plain Mercedes with little to go wrong you would be better off to find a pre-83 diesel with few if any luxury features than to buy a newer well-equiped one.
12. Sam

    November 13, 2012 at 10:43 am    3 or Flag as not constructive 

    Vaguely Berlin Polizei.
13. Hotrodelectric

    November 13, 2012 at 10:59 am    3 or Flag as not constructive 

    A 220D auto with what is likely a heavier station wagon body – I think ‘glacially’ slow would be a massive understatement…

    The heavier body, automatic, PLUS A/C? You don’t use a stopwatch for 0-60 runs. That requires a sundial. :)
14. Vincenzo Barbieri

    November 13, 2012 at 11:07 am    5 or Flag as not constructive 

    Wait – let me get this straight, someone found an abandoned car in a hangar, drove it until it broke, never fixed it and now wants $7500 for it?

    I love a sweet W115, but this loves like some kind of highway robbery! $500 no-reserve would be a fair starting place for this on ebay.
15. jboat49

    November 13, 2012 at 11:14 am    1 or Flag as not constructive 

    Don’t know who should be de-frocked first — the designer, the body guy or the paint guy.

    Ugh.

    Conceptually, this is one of those cars you’d sorta like to buy real cheap and mess with (SBC/five speed or later-era diesel and five speed). BUT the awful reality is that it wouldn’t help — the body is so darn odd and unpleasant, you couldn’t make this look appealing with Sofia Vergara at the wheel.

    “The present owner purchased it in 2006, drove it until 2008 and stored it inside since.” Really? So why’s it sitting outside, on blocks, in a swamp? This didn’t just get rolled outside briefly for the photo op.

    Price is nuts. As CharlieO points out, it’s not worth $7500 restored.
16. James

    November 13, 2012 at 11:16 am    2 or Flag as not constructive 

    Over-priced, by many thousands of dollars, but overall looks like a solid project. For my $$, it would receive a manual transmission and a V8 (all Mercedes items btw, no chevy / ford transplants).. otherwise, remain stock outside.

    Wagons are the best!
17. A Benz Apart

    November 13, 2012 at 11:34 am    1 or Flag as not constructive 

    sorry, yuck.
18. Beyfon

    November 13, 2012 at 11:41 am    0 or Flag as not constructive 

    Have to agree with James – even if pictures are poor and the BIN very optimistic it really doesn’t appear to be a bad car. Interior is reasonably well kept, and apart from the awful paint scheme it looks ok outside and under the hood. Finding a Binz wagon taillight migh be a bit of a challenge though…

    I do appreciate that the seller do not go into hyperbole about either condition or rarity, even if the “for parts” is odd for a car that you’re asking top dollar for.
19. Dr Randy

    November 13, 2012 at 11:42 am    2 or Flag as not constructive 

    The 7500 dollar price tag is, in my humble opinion, completely stupid. It looks very solid, no rust I could see, and the interior appears to have held up well. The non running status is obviously the wild card here. If the motor is shot, the price is WAAAY too high. Someone must know why this thing got parked and walked away from.
20. coloradodave

    November 13, 2012 at 11:45 am    2 or Flag as not constructive 

    Michelin X Redline radials ………..?
21. Graham

    November 13, 2012 at 12:04 pm    3 or Flag as not constructive 

    The only “service vehicle” a modern MB can make use of is a roll-back…
22. Henry J

    November 13, 2012 at 12:06 pm    1 or Flag as not constructive 

    Sam might be right that this car was an ambulance or Polizei car. Green and white is often the color combination of German Police cars. A careful inspection would probably confirm or deny that. I often saw Notartz cars go by fast with emergency lights on. Notartz is emergency Doctor in German. Most of those were new Merc station wagons.In Germany for major accidents there is a Doctor in a Notartz car as well as the ambulance with medics.

    For those who really like old somewhat-odd trucks and station wagons I still think this car may be ideal. Some are jumping to conclusions on things like “outdoor storage in a swamp,” and must be rusty. It sure does not look to have any serious rust. Mercedes of that age often do have rust holes in the typical and obvious places like the bottoms of the fenders and I don’t see them here.

    The lower fender edges and panel below the bumper are clearly shown and seem to have no significant rust. The inner lip of the front fenders indicates a repaint. That might have been when new as part of the conversion. I see a cut tire.

    The broken tail-light might be a stock item from some other year and model. Conversion companies often use standard lights from some other vehicle to easily meet all requirements and avoid fabrication of a new part.

    Further guesses: This one must have been a German spec car that was either illegally imported or imported after it was already quite old. The ad says the odo is in KM. Among the DOT/customs requirements when I had my 1983 Porsche 944 imported in 1988 was a new speedo and odo in MPH (adjusted to show approx the correct conversion from KM to miles having gone by).

    In 1988, the car had to be 1967 or older to import without any conversion. Now I think the requirement to avoid DOT and EPA conversion is 25 years old. Perhaps being a pilot the earlier owner of this car had inside contacts to more or less smuggle the car in on a cargo plane. If the story in the ad is accurate it seems to have been in the country too long to have been imported as a 25 year old or older car. The FL Antique plate indicates it was or is properly registered.
23. Ender

    November 13, 2012 at 12:06 pm    4 or Flag as not constructive 

    It’s goofy looking, but so am I. How about a German Ghostbusters’ getup?
24. Henry J

    November 13, 2012 at 12:13 pm    0 or Flag as not constructive 

    Many have said before it is silly to say a price is too high or too low without having actaully inspected the car closely. Condition is the biggest factor in value of old cars. There can be a huge number of incidental dents and scrapes that don’t show in pics. And as with all the many cmts that the 38K 911 was overpriced, remember any price shown is an asking price. Experienced sellers often leave room to negotiate. The old saying is you can always negotiate the price down to close a sale while you almost never can raise it.
25. jboat49

    November 13, 2012 at 12:51 pm    0 or Flag as not constructive 

    @Henry J –
    Good comments. But your reference to my “swamp” comment — I’m simply saying that it’s out there at the present time, not that it sat for years and is a rustbucket. I’d agree that it looks reasonably rust-free (but who knows what’s under the respray?) Fact is, the seller isn’t taking very good care of it, despite the years of hangar storage. So it soon may be a rusty mess.

    Also, it’s a non-runner. If it was a simple fix, I bet it’d be done so the seller could ask even more for it. No one drives a decent car for a couple of years, breaks it, then just walks away unless the tab is too big to manage. My guess is that there’s major woes in the engine or trans.

    And even IF it was solid mechanically and could be rehabilitated at modest cost, what would you have? A wagon that is substantially less attractive than a true Merc wagon, painfully slow, and still needy.

    Unless it’s a buy at $1000 or less, it ought to be passed up. Not worth the time or trouble.
26. Double02

    November 13, 2012 at 1:41 pm    1 or Flag as not constructive 

    All I get looking at this is some sort of icecream truck at a summer camp. Maybe Burning Man?
27. cyrus

    November 13, 2012 at 1:46 pm    0 or Flag as not constructive 

    for alot less than the asking price you can buy a peugeot 504 wagon with more room&more pleasent ride that attracts alot more attention on the road,cheaper parts&reliable&4 speed manual model is not very slow either.(probabley faster than a 220 diesel).7500 bucks is just insane.
28. The Vog

    November 13, 2012 at 1:57 pm    0 or Flag as not constructive 

    Kind of cool. If it was roadworthy, I think $7500 would be reasonable. Since when did old, non-running, non-collectable cars become something other than $500 parts cars?
29. nigel prodrive

    November 13, 2012 at 1:57 pm    4 or Flag as not constructive 

    I had an American-market cousin to this Benz, a 76 230 4-door. Classic “Beirut Taxi,” it was tough, stolid, and ran like a sewing machine — especially once I replaced the infernal Solex carb with a Weber DGEV.

    “Janis” was primrose yellow with cinnamon MB-tex interior. She was showing 80-some thousand on the odo, absolutely no idea if that was 80k, 180k or 580k, and it made absolutely no difference. I can still close my eyes and smell the hot oil from leaky cam cover, and a warm horsehair fragrance from the back seats getting cooked by her cobbled-up exhaust….alas she succumbed to terminal cancer from too many Maine winters.
30. KingZut

    November 13, 2012 at 2:20 pm    1 or Flag as not constructive 

    @Ender

    Yep… I can kind of see it!

    Ich habe keine Angst ein kein Geist
    Ich habe keine Angst ein kein Geist
    Wenn Sie Sachen sehen, durch Ihren Kopf zu laufen
    Wer kann bei Ihnen anzurufen (ghostbusters)

    (To oom-pah-pah music…)
31. Xtian999

    November 13, 2012 at 2:23 pm    0 or Flag as not constructive 

    Check carefully for spare “keys.”
32. PBL

    November 13, 2012 at 2:46 pm    0 or Flag as not constructive 

    For the morbidly curious I located through the Googlewebs what purports to be performance figures for a ’72 220D Binz wagon: 0-100 km/h: 31.0 secs, top speed: 125 kph

    These were never common, but MB did make more than 2,000 of the W114/W115 diesel ambulances/wagons. They also made gas-powered version, but far fewer of those.
33. BrooklynBridge

    November 13, 2012 at 2:46 pm    0 or Flag as not constructive 

    Quick spin through eBay Germany turns up some interesting and reasonably-priced alternatives, including a spectacular blue ’75 W116 hearse complete with glass walls and a chrome cross on the roof. Also similar W123 in grey, on what looks like a stretched platform.
34. BrooklynBridge

    November 13, 2012 at 2:51 pm    0 or Flag as not constructive 

    Or a fully-outfitted W124 ambulance complete with stripes, gurney and a manual transmission for a mere 5,500 Euros.
35. Dave Redux

    November 13, 2012 at 2:54 pm    1 or Flag as not constructive 

    They don’t know how many miles it has because the speedo is in KM?

    I guess they don’t teach metric/American conversion formula in Florida… or math…
36. 140,000 Mile TT

    November 13, 2012 at 2:58 pm    3 or Flag as not constructive 

    Yes, $7,500, sure. And whoever said this should be converted to bio diesel, you do know that you guys are fast becoming a meme. “See that house over there, that should be converted to bio-diesel. See that cake? Bio-diesel. See that jacket? I converted it to bio-diesel.”
37. 140,000 Mile TT

    November 13, 2012 at 2:58 pm    0 or Flag as not constructive 

    Yes, $7,500, sure. And whoever said this should be converted to bio diesel, you do know that you guys are fast becoming a meme. “See that house over there, that should be converted to bio-diesel. See that cake? Bio-diesel. See that jacket? I converted it to bio-diesel.”
38. jh

    November 13, 2012 at 3:30 pm    0 or Flag as not constructive 

    ‘Abandoned by a pilot in a Florida hangar’…what could possibly go wrong?
    Of course, careful examination of the vehicle body after minor disassembly could make the 7500 seem a bargain; assuming you dont get caught trying to recoup the investment… :)
39. offroaded

    November 13, 2012 at 4:01 pm    0 or Flag as not constructive 

    You just dont see 2 tone green and white much these days. Id save the paint.
40. Beyfon

    November 13, 2012 at 4:15 pm    0 or Flag as not constructive 

    A couple of comments to the discussion:
    A/ Mechanically, there are hardly any cars that are as bomb proof as these. That 220D/auto combo will regularly go 500,000 miles with nothing but regular service, and probably half of that without even an oil change. Given that the car looks pretty clean at seats, door panels, buttons etc it would give quite good hope that there is a lot of life left in that drivetrain. Of course you will never know without talking to the seller and looking at the car.
    B/ Bad news on the tail light – unless someone has proof of me being wrong but I actually think these conversions used unique tail lights.
    C/ Most Binz wagons would have a raised roof, so it seems pretty rare to me to see a regular wagon like this.
41. Frank Barrett

    November 13, 2012 at 4:55 pm    1 or Flag as not constructive 

    OK, I’m being pedantic, but it’s “hangar”, not “hanger”.
42. DaveW

    November 13, 2012 at 6:24 pm    0 or Flag as not constructive 

    I owned a 220d/auto for a bit.

    If the 220d had a full tank and an extra passenger it would be a toss up in a drag race with my Isetta.
43. 6point3

    November 13, 2012 at 6:34 pm    0 or Flag as not constructive 

    kids, kids, kids
    I guess it’s late in the game to chime in here, BUT, since nobody said it, here it is:

    1 NO-WHERE in the (Seller/ E-bay-) description did I find a mention of Binz being the Coach-builder.
    While it’s a possibility, I believe it is not Binz.
    I believe it to be Miesen, or possibly the most common, a Portuguese Coach-builder, who made hundreds of these (IIRC).

    2 it was neither a Hearse nor an Ambulance, since neither were built on the SWB, but the (by then) most likely and more common LWB chassis provided by Mercedes Benz for such purposes. Hearse builders by then (late sixties)had refined their coachwork to include a huge back hatch and enormous side windows to display the casket being moved.

    While these (/8s) have gained in popularity, they were the ‘cheap’ line of Mercedes, the common folks’ car, so the upper end ceiling is not far, and parts are just as expensive.
    As for reliability, I agree they’re hardly destructible, unless what what happened to me is a often occurrence:
    I lost complete oil pressure on the freeway (out of the blue) and I shut it off immediately and cruised to a stop, but too late. It turns out the oil pump is driven by a tiny separate chain that goes out unannounced:
    Result was a engine frozen……

    And as for the Bio- diesel crock:
    these don’t really move well unless completely fresh out of the grate and expertly tuned and adjusted.
    To suggest to run this on anything else but decent diesel is the equivalent of tying a boat anchor to the back bumper.