Mercedes 207D / 307D vans - need pics!

[Peter C]

Cool retro van:

 

 

Could someone please point me in the direction of decent photos of the cab and dashboard - there is very little out there!

[Cavcraft]

Somewhere at home I have an original 609/709/811 brochure from about 1988, I'm pretty sure the interior was identical save for the tacho. I'll see if I can dig it out.Ps there's one in a field 'twixt Chester and Ellesmere Port being used to advertise car boot sales or farmers markets or some such shite.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Super rare those old vans now. I thnk theyve all been sent off to Africa!

[seth]

Super rare those old vans now. I thnk theyve all been sent off to Africa!

A neighbour a few doors up has a minibus one with several rows of seats for carrying his kids about in!I'll see if I can get some photos for you Peter.

[Peter C]

Nice one, cheers fellas!

 

I love those old vans.

 

Most were fitted with the same 2.4 diesel engine found in W123 240Ds. Slow as hell but will go on for ever. I haven't seen a tidy one in years.

 

Here's some more pics - smashing looking motors!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I want one!!!!

[Cavcraft]

Have you ever driven one? I had one (company vehicle) and gave it back after a ten mile journey. Had some crappy 'magic wand' style gear lever that made it almost impossible to go down the gears.

[brammy777]

I spotted 2 of these in London recently, covered in graffitti but still taxed.And theres a Camper one in Alton, but I havent seen any others for ages.

[Spottedlaurel]

Aren't these now popular with travellers? Crusty/hippy type I mean.

[Peter C]

Have you ever driven one?

Yes, last time about 10 years ago. It felt much softer but more robust than the then new Sprinter. You're right though, the gearchange wasn't great, but it drove well and behave much like a car.

[Peter C]

I seem to remember a chase scene involving one of these at the start of the movie True Lies.

[simmo]

I used to work on a fleet of Mercs 307/308/814 and 1617sThe 307s were very slow due to having a large box body and tailift but brilliant milage munchers we had one with 450K on the clock when it got sold on.The MD was a proper control freak and fitted the black box spy thingys to all the vehicle. When the stats got printed out they were shocked that the 307Ds were doing less to the gallon that the 814s (16ish for for the and 17+ for the 814s). Further investigation found that most of the drivers reckoned the vans went quicker in 4th than 5th gear.

[Cavcraft]

I used to work on a fleet of Mercs 307/308/814 and 1617sThe 307s were very slow due to having a large box body and tailift but brilliant milage munchers we had one with 450K on the clock when it got sold on.The MD was a proper control freak and fitted the black box spy thingys to all the vehicle. When the stats got printed out they were shocked that the 307Ds were doing less to the gallon that the 814s (16ish for for the and 17+ for the 814s). Further investigation found that most of the drivers reckoned the vans went quicker in 4th than 5th gear.

We used to drive everywhere in 3rd or 4th in our company Transits so we could use more fuel and get more Tiger tokens!

[Milford Cubicle]

Aren't they rusty boneshakers of a van? I have heard a few tales about them from people who've driven them, and they aren't positive.

[trigger]

They all suffer from rot, even late M plate ones are all rusty, I still sometimes see market traders use them.I remember years ago a farm i done some work on had a 1980 V reg one, It was yellow with a flatbed, Done monster mileage, It was the earliest one I'd seen, I never even knew they made them back then.

[pogweasel]

Hey, I remember these! My first job was working for a courier firm that had loads of 208s/308s, I remember them being very slug-like to drive, there was a definate knack to getting the best out of them, as the gearbox was like stirring porridge and if you mis-timed your change or ballsed it up you''d lose momentum and be back to square one. Very low geared and horrifically noisey too, motorways were not a fun experience. They have a wierd dog-leg gearbox too, which was fun.Sprinters were 100x more user-friendly, but less sturdy.

[shite_meister]

They're fucking horrible to drive and the steering wheel is about the worlds largest steering wheel, it is in fact almost as if the men at Mercedes were 'Having a fucking larf' I hate them, I didn't want to hate them though because when I were a wee lad back in't eighties I had a Corgi Porsche raing team back-up van and the opening side door rocked.

[Rusty Pelican]

Used to drive a J plate one for work , fugging horendous thing , gearchange was pot luck , chronic panel vibration over 40 , tried to gas me when the alternator reg went capput and it fried the battery which is under the drivers seat , finally melted the thing driving flat out from Oxford to Taunton with the temperature in the red ( deliberately didnt stop ) , Oh and the sliding side door kept flying open , never want to see one again

[wuvvum]

Someone I know has a beavertail one of these, but it's a 410D so has the 2.9-litre 5-pot, so it both goes and sounds better than a 307. That has a dogleg box too, with a ridiculously low first gear. The old VW LTs used to have a dogleg box which was like stirring porridge - was it the same box? I think Merc and VW vans used to share some components even before the Sprinter/LT came out, didn't they? I'm pretty sure these old Mercs and the original LT have the same rear lights too.

[shite_meister]

I'm pretty sure these old Mercs and the original LT have the same rear lights too.

I know that they're the same as a bay window camper so you are probably right. In fact check out the photograph I took last year to illustrate the point (and proving that I'm quite anal) :

[Justin Case]

Aren't these now popular with travellers? Crusty/hippy type I mean.

Yes there are still a few of them in the Mid Wales border area, around the Hergest Ridge part of the world, although the omnipresent lurchers tend to inhibit close-up photography

[Rogue trader]

I used to work for a car and van auction and remember selling loads of these vans most of which where totally shafted from a company called M P Burke which used to repair the railways they could take some proper abuse and where all painted in a horrible light green colour we used to call them the T1 Brenan has anyone else heard of this name ?

[garbaldy]

Ah the memories ive slept many a mile in the pasenger seat off these vans back when i where a lad Fully loaded with stall and stock doing 90 most off the way those where the days its the highest odometer reading ive ever seen 874 thousand dont think it made the magic million though as two years later it was crashed all the vans they had where blue mercs though and spent allot off time getting new parts fitted, The guys are still tradeing but drive trannys now as the sprinters that eventually replaced the old vans must have been to cack for them.

[andrew e]

You still see a lot of those ex "dial-a-ride 308 buses with the concertina doors about in London. My dads 208 cleared 200k happily. I'm quite convinced it had a hand throttle on the dash so you could creep along in traffic.

[FredTransit]

Well I did wonder what these were like to drive, and I am now glad I didn't bother to find out!

[Rusty Pelican]

Forgot about the ultra low first , no sooner had you managed to find it which was a challenge you then had to try and find second , not sure why it was that low , maybe to pull away with a full load which my old J reg couldnt manage anyway

[Cavcraft]

Well I did wonder what these were like to drive, and I am now glad I didn't bother to find out!

Good decision. Just picture seeing a gap at the Bromborough/Little Chef roundabout off the M53 and trying to change gear with both hands in blind panic as 38 tonnes of Scania's finest was bearing down on you.

[meggersdog]

Used to drive one to Moston,Manchester once or twice a week in the mid 90's.I thought the wanky gearchange was down to the 300k on the clock but reading these posts seems like they were all like that.

[Guest]

I remember driving a K reg one of these, with the Luton body.Top speed about 45mph, it was faster in 4th gear than 5th, but then the engine was howling.It wouldn't pull off in 2nd, and with that awful dog leg first gear, by the time you'd wrestled it from 1st to 2nd, all revs had been lost!Oh, and a seat which was like sitting on a concrete park bench.And an accelerator pedal that nearly collided with the brake pedal.Not good memories of these!Now, the Sprinter was much better!!

[Cavcraft]

Forgot about the ultra low first , no sooner had you managed to find it which was a challenge you then had to try and find second , not sure why it was that low , maybe to pull away with a full load which my old J reg couldnt manage anyway

The 609D I had was the same. I tried first gear about 4 times just to made sure it worked as it would always pull off in 2nd, even with a 7 series Beemer loaded with scrap on it!

[Guest]

Even though they were tough engineering, they were awkward for drivers. I feel sorry for the drivers of the Merc minibuses still running in these parts...