Friday, September 30, 2011

Mercedes-Benz W120 Kombi

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(Photo by Stig Baumeyer)

This Mercedes-Benz W120 Kombi (=estate/station wagon) found in Norway not only is a remarkably rare car, but also has a very interesting story to tell. But more about that later.

The normal W120 was built 171746 times between 1953 and 1961 and therefore was quite a common car in Europe at that time. Many examples survived, so it's still not too rare. In addition to these sedans though, Mercedes-Benz also built 5667 chassis frames including engine and transmission, which were meant to be converted to special versions of the W120 by other companies (to help your imagination, here is a picture).

(Source)

Monday, September 26, 2011

Skoda 1000MB

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(Pictures by Stokpic)

Although more than 400000 Skoda 1000MBs were built in the Eastern Bloc between 1964 and 1969, it is a very rare car now, partly because these cars already left the factory heavily rusting (for having that bad reputation, the abandoned car above looks remarkably good, though).
The rear engine concept also lead to massive cooling problems. The 1000MB even had an extra cooling water reservoir because blown head gaskets made many of them lose this fluid.
Due to the lack of better alternatives east of the Berlin Wall and because of it being considered exceptionally elegant, the 1000MB sold quite well nevertheless.
The car pictured above (which has been found in Berlin, Germany) is an example of the first series, which was produced till 1966 and is, in my opinion, a much more beautiful car than the later models, which got a rectangular grille and lost the lights on the C-pillars.
One of the rare, but still not expensive 1000MBs looking like new is shown below.

(Photo by xavnco2)