Mercedes 220D Estate

An Estate Version of the W115 had been completed at Mercedes Benz, but the production has never been started due to lack of production capacity. W115 Estate Versions were produced by German (e.g. Binz and Miesen), English (Crayford), Belgian (IMA Universal) and Portuguese (Dos Santos) coachbuilders in very small quantity.

This particular Car was done on the basis of supplied CKD (complete knock down) Limousine bodies from which the coachbuilders designed their estate versions. The most elegant was the “Dos Santos Estate”. As they only prolonged the roof, keeping the silhouette of the Limousine which had been designed by the automotive designer Paul Brack. Most of the other coachbuilders lifted up the roof so that their Estate Version in general had the look of an ambulance.

In the end, we are speaking of a very small quantity of cars which have been build as predecessor to the famous W123 T Model. So this Dos Santos is the the first real “Estate version” of the Mercedes Benz Limousine.

The VIN number of the CKD Limousines delivered to the coach builders were 115.100 for the Ambulance Version and 115.102 for the Estate Version. In total it is assumed, that there were some 2.327 CKD delivered to the different Coachbuilders mainly for Ambulances. The actual production number of the Dos Santos Estates has been clear but rumours say only 128 of them were built. Making the 220D Estate a very rare Mercedes.