IS IT REAL OR IS IT A CUSTOM?

converted to make it look like it came from the factory.

I agreed. What is even more amazing is that Mercedes never made production-wagon versions of this car.

There were custom-conversion versions of Mercedes Wagon as ambulances and tradesman vehicle even before this model, but the first production wagon was the W123.

He was taken aback. We looked at the wagon closely and it was hard to find any flaw in the final product, and nearly everything, every panel, every part looked factory-made.

The only part that looked custom was the rear tail lamp lens, which showed modification marks in its conversion to the smaller vertical configuration.

It used the original small lamp rather than the fluted facelifted versions.

While German conversions at that time had taller rooflines and looked like they were converted, this Indonesian customised vehicle used a clever trick to achieve the factory look that the German conversions could not have done. He travelled forward in time. He used the roof of the W123 wagon and all its hardware, including rear tailgates as well as side windows as the wagon conversion.

Then he crafted the little details to make it work.

They took the rear quarterlight from the 123 and grafted it to the rear door of the 115, eliminating any odd transitions from the rear door to the wagon bits.

They also repanelled the tailgate at the windowlines to match the more delicate shoulder bulge of the 115 and cut through the rear tail lamp combo to leave just a small bit on the main bodywork, while the rest came up with the tailgate.

To do that, they had to reseal the edges and that was where the colour of the plastic did not quite match and that was the only trace of the non-factory finish we could find.

Even the interior of the load space was re-trimmed with W123 bits, right down to the cargo net.

Sadly, I have lost all pictures of the wagon, so you just have to imagine what it looked like and anyway we should go back to this wonderful W115 pickup truck.

If you had guessed that it was a conversion, it would have been a good guess.

The rear-suspension turret looked custom, so I had guessed that it was an aftermarket conversion as well, but then again, the chrome surround to the rear lamps bugged me.

A custom conversion would have been expensive if they had wanted to craft the bezel from scratch, but it was not a fatal flaw because these conversions could have been done for wealthy clients who just wanted something unique, price be damned.

A few image searches later and I saw a picture of a double cab version of this the 115 pickup, which looked hideous, and that convinced me that they must all be custom conversions.

But then I came across a picture of an orange version of this car with a slightly different rear gate design and lamp arrangements that looked custom but had plates that looked like they were from the Mercedes Museum.

Still, the museum does keep interesting cars and may have included this conversion in that collection.

Apparently, this used to be operated by a Stuttgart rail company and used by the crew that kept the junctions lubricated.

Later, it was sold off to a private owner, who converted the car into a camper, and that was when the rear tailgate was cut away and sealed and the rear lamp leaned horizontal again.

This change made it look visually more interesting but not original, said the article.

It seems the original was not born in a custom shop but at Mercedes’ Gonzales Catan manufacturing facility in Argentina and it was not a one-off local experiment.

In fact, the double cab you see here is also from that same factory and also not a one-off car show special. They were affectionately called La Pickup.

Argentina had a protected market up till the end of the last millennium and there is a ban on the import of cars or trucks, so any company that wanted to sell its products in the country had built it in the country, and Mercedes had such a factory.

A growing economy needs pickup trucks and I guess Toyota didn’t have a factory churning out Hiluxes there, so Mercedes decided it should take some share of the business by lopping off the rear of its 220Ds and selling them.

The only thing that looks slightly out of spec is the top reinforcement for the suspension turret that sits on top of the wheel well.

To my eye, they look different because in pictures of the original the top ran as a straight line to the sides, forming a triangle, but in the Thai car, it forms four sides.

The main turret itself is slightly wider when compared with photographs of the original.

But then again, it could have been a later reinforcement or technical improvement.

The reinforcement creases on the back of the cab is spot on and that is just really a lot of work for a one off.

Without inspecting the actual car, based on just the photographs, I am 85 per cent convinced this could be the real thing.