In a way, this is a tale as old as time. Some enterprising rednecks get hold of a car that is well past its best days on the cheap. The car runs and drives, but there’s no bringing its cosmetics back from the dead. To unlock the remaining glory, our heroes must cut. And cut. And cut some more. And add a hater pipe. And put off-road tires where off-road tires were never meant to go.
In the case of the dudes at Building Ugly Machines (hereafter known as BUM), the vehicle is a 1980-something Mercedes-Benz 300SD turbodiesel. These dudes aren’t just any rednecks though. The ringleader got his start on YouTube at the Grind Hard Plumbing Co. shop, so he knows his way around SEMA-level redneck engineering.
The result is the “Baja Benz,” a homemade Mercedes-Benz pickup wearing big tires, cut fenders, and enough steel tube armor to protect it from…incidents. Calamity. Tomfoolery. Just regular old-car desert chicanery. And by “protect it,” we mean “sorta protect it.”
This is the kind of calamity we will always sign up for. Check it out yourself at the link.
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