This Looks Like A Rare Mercedes W120 Pickup, But It's Actually An AMG A45 Truck

This Looks Like A Rare Mercedes W120 Pickup, But It's Actually An AMG A45 Truck originally appeared on Autoblog.

Mercedes-Benz W120 180 'Ponton' Was An OEM Pickup

You've almost certainly never seen anything like this before. Even if you know what a W120 180D 'Ponton' sedan is, you probably haven't seen the pickup made for South Africa (even though this version sold in higher numbers there). And a restomod (or something to that approximation) based on one is certainly in the realm of unicorns. Double Apex first shared the story of a South African-based restoration company called Mo's Restorations and Parts (a.k.a. Mo-shinz), run by Morne Greeff. He grew up around post-war Mercs and today collects and restores these (and other) classic vehicles, deciding to turn one into a rabid restomod with the help of AMG's multiple award-winning M133 engine. That's the 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder that first found a home in the A45, later coming to our shores in the body of the brilliant CLA 45 and others (including, regretfully, the C 63).

In this application, it produces 375 horsepower and 350 lb-ft of torque. That's in a Mercedes 180D that originally came with no more than 43 ponies and 75 lb-ft from a 1.7-liter OM636 VII engine, the first diesel introduced by Daimler-Benz since the war, also found in the 1949 170D. We say 'car' because the 'Ponton' (or pontoon, the name given to cars of a type of airplane-inspired construction method) before you started life as a sedan and is now one of fewer than a hundred pickup conversions approved by Daimler-Benz for the SA market that is still rumored to exist. There's a little more history on the vehicle at the end of this article, if you're interested, but the retromod has our attention right now.

A Young Hot Hatch Pretending To Be A Retired Pickup

View the 3 images of this gallery on the original article

Although Audi, Lamborghini, and others may have jumped on the Nardo Grey and Grigio Telesto bandwagons in the 2010s and never got off, vehicles of the 1950s and 1960s had monocromatic, pastel-like paints first. This pays tribute to that, not to a modern Mercedes Selenite, Arabian, or Graphite Gray, and works beautifully with the varnished wood strips in the bed. However, most of the rest of the vehicle is thoroughly modernized. Wheels are the widened spares off a Mercedes M-Class ML, headlights and taillights are LEDs, and of course, the underpinnings are thoroughly modern, as this is actually an A45 underneath a W120 pickup's body. That means not only the engine of the hot hatch, but also its seven-speed dual-clutch transmission and AWD system. This isn't a restomod, where an old car is restored and modernized, but a retromod, where a new car is made to look old. The recently released Rezvani RR1 is another example of this.

Naturally, that means the cabin is not fitted with bench seating and a steering wheel thinner than a boomer's patience. The cabin is modern and athletic, with a look and feel that belie the old-school exterior, thanks to the dashboard, infotainment display, climate control system, door cards, electric windows, foot pedals, and paddle-shift steering wheel being retained. Unfortunately for any interested parties, this particular vehicle has already been sold, but Greeff is reportedly working on a second, similar vehicle.

An Exceptionally Rare Machine

According to Benz-Books, this pickup followed Daimler-Benz's need to increase exports and rebuild factories, and many Mercedes 170 and 180 vehicles were sent to the South American market as CKD (completely knocked down) models that would be assembled after import to avoid taxes. South Africa also imported cars, but in the mid-1950s, the local government applied strict import quotas in an effort to encourage the domestic assembly and production of vehicles, slowing the sales of newly imported Mercedes sedans to just 100 annually. That was among six importers, so they came together to arrange with the head office in Germany for half-cars to be imported. These had the body section going only up to the B-pillars so that they could be finished as utilitarian pickups, which could be classified as commercial vehicles to dodge the import quota. It's the reverse of how Subaru welded rear-facing jump seats into the Brat to dodge America's Chicken Tax on trucks, and it's assumed German coachbuilder Binz got the idea for its own slightly different pickup conversion from this. Around 500 to 550 180D pickups are estimated to have been in South Africa by the end of the 1950s.

I had no idea what this vehicle was before I started writing this article, despite my genetic roots in the country from which it hails. But now that the research is complete, and my appreciation has grown, I can't help but wonder if these cars should simply be preserved due to their rarity or if they should be played with and chopped apart to generate new interest in their design. I certainly wouldn't be writing about this Mercedes without its blend of old and new, just as many kids may never have found an interest in the cars Henry Ford built if it were not for hot rodding. So I leave you with a question. Are restomods/retromods of ancient cars a net positive or a setback for the preservation of history?

Related: Mercedes CEO Slams Combustion Ban, Calls For "Reality Check"

This Looks Like A Rare Mercedes W120 Pickup, But It's Actually An AMG A45 Truck first appeared on Autoblog on Aug 12, 2025

This story was originally reported by Autoblog on Aug 12, 2025, where it first appeared.