This photo came up at an Israeli cars’ forum some time ago, and I thought it might be of interest to the CC community. Its origin is from a book about Jerusalem, and it shows an aerial view of what used to be a parking area (if you can call it that) near the Damascus (or Nablus) Gate at the old city walls.
Up until the formation of the Palestinian Authority in 1993 and the Israeli-Jordanian Peace Agreement in 1994, the West-Bank was, among other things, being governed rather messily. Although the region was under Israeli military law since the 1967 Six-Day-War, many services were still being provided by Jordan, including registrations and licensing of cars, clearly bearing blue plates rather than the Israeli yellow ones. Besides that, many cars, mostly Taxis (a lot of which were elongated W114/115, W123s and W124 MBs) would cross over the Jordan border carrying passengers on their way to meet families in or near Jerusalem (and of course, around Israel itself. I have vivid memories of these driving around my home-town as I was growing up).
Essentially this is what you see here, hoards of W123s (with inevitable roof-racks) but also many Peugeot 504s (sedan and estate), VW T2s and Transit vans, all of which were very favorable with the local inhabitants (whether Jews or Arabs). Of course, there are more marks, such as Subarus, some early Ford Sierras (one of which is a Police-car!), an early Fiat 127, an elongated Opel Omega, first gen. Seat Ibiza, a couple of CJ6s and many more.
Although in the aforementioned forum it was claimed that the photo dates to the early 1990s, I’d wager that it was actually taken in the mid-1980s, as I could not spot a single W124, and that’s just wouldn’t be possible in Israel come the early 1990s; W124s were selling by the bucket-load especially as taxis, both regular or elongated. * Following the comments below, I concede that this photo indeed dates from the early 1990s, thus changed the post’s headline.
I’ve divided the photo in two to make it essentially larger and easier on the eyes. I’ll leave you the rest to go over and discover whatever you may find, but see if you can spot the sole Fiat 132 in there:
Considering Mercedes 123 often means middle class, upper middle class professionals ( at least in the US and Canada ), or represents upper government ranks ( as in China and North Korea ) its association to affluence is deeply embedded in my impression for those cars, especially looking back at the social life in the ’80s, and limousine always means social prestige,
The culture shock to me is how utterly rich they were! That’s horrible a lot of Mercedes limousines and they merely use them as taxis!
Cool find. I think this photo would in fact be from the early 90’s…only because of the blue Legacy on the left side of the photo, next to what looks like a red Peugeot.
Nope these all had lived their lives in Europe, especially the Peugeots and the Benzes. This was their second life, no more cold starts, no more salted roads, no northern european rain.
Most of these cars lived longer and more cherished lives in the middle east.
Uh oh. Those were all new imports (or 2 years old at the most) – that was and is the law in Israel (there is an exception for collectors cars which did not exist back then but it prohibits using the car for business purposes, so not even today).
This is Damascus, Syria.
Damascus GATE at the old city wall of Jerusalem, Israel… See the link in the post.
Love the photo. Mercedes is a fine marque but in the near east it is used as a beast of burden because of its durability. In Lebanon, the taxis are called “service.” Yoha, correct me if I am wrong: There are companies who specialize in rehabilitating these taxis with new interiors and working parts which enables them Mercedes to stay on the road.
Well, not in Israel- all those elongated MBs reached the Palestinian Authority a long time ago (replaced in Israel by commercial vans with seats like the Sprinter, Crafter or Transit), and I have no idea what they do to keep them on the road.
Great pictures and story — thanks for sharing! The stretched Mercedes are quite a fascinating thing for me, since I’ve never seen one in the flesh, let alone tons of them at once.
Several of the vehicles I can’t identify, but this one has me a but perplexed. (It’s in the top-left of the last picture.) At first I thought it was a Subaru Legacy (circa 1989), but it doesn’t exactly match that. Any ideas?
After I posted this, I noticed Corey’s post above, and he also thinks it’s a Legacy, so maybe it is one after all.
Yeah, it’s definitely a 1st generation (89-93) Legacy. I still have my 2nd gen, so this jumped out at me from the sea of stretched W123s.
In addition to that Legacy (1991, I think), I also see what I believe is a stretched Opel Senator. Top pic, white car, all the way on the left, bottom third of the photo.
I would guess that the w124s are missing because they took a while to trickle down to the West Bank. Maybe I’m wrong, but I always assumed that Palestinians bought them as used cars, and stretched w124s were probably still too early in their (LONG) lifecycle around 1991 to have made it there yet.
I was looking at that one too – is it a stretched Omega?
It is indeed. Some of these were marketed here as Taxis obviously, but couldn’t stand a chance against the elongated W124s, that much like the W123s before them, overrun the Taxi-market.
I’m curious about that white car near to the blue Opel Rekord Caravan, it also looks like a GM car, seemed to an Omega, but his nose is longer with small head lights, like a Holden VN Commodore. But what is intriguing me is that both looks so small near to that white Ford Sierra!
The light blue wagon? To the right of it is I believe a white Audi 80, same as the brown/gold one another 3 or 4 further to the right.
Oh sorry, I forgot to put the picture!
I owned a bone-stock W123 240D. It was a very slow car. It really made me wonder how much slower a W123 200D would be. I can’t begin to imagine the 0-60 time on the LWB W123 200D. Surely it was hundreds of pounds heavier than a W123 with a normal wheelbase.
Thanks for all your comments- I updated the headline, as you’re absolutely correct, given the Legacy. I’ve also discovered a Daihatsu Applause, another car introduced in 1989:
The number of W123s is overwhelming! There are a few narrow-track farm tractors too, I think these are Ferraris (green with white rims).
Yohai, I’ve tried and tried fut couldn’t find a 132. Just this 131. Where is the 132, pray tell me?
See the orange car with the roof-rack? Very hard to decipher, but comparing with a photo of a 132, you’ll notice some details will match.
Looks like it to me.
This Ford Transit minibus is the revised version introduced in 1991: