All the details about the Mercedes-Benz E-Class hearse that led Queen Elizabeth’s cortege through Scotland.
The black five-door Mercedes-Benz E-Class hearse which carried Queen Elizabeth’s coffin from Balmoral to Edinburgh was built by famed German coachbuilder, Binz.
Founded in 1936 in Lorch, near Stuttgart in Germany, Binz began as a literal coachbuilder, constructing ambulance and funeral bodies for horse-drawn carriages.
In the 1950s, Binz started working with Mercedes-Benz, creating four-door estate versions of the ‘W191’ 170S of the early 1950s and ambulance conversions of the ‘W136’ delivery van.
The relationship stepped up a level in 1956, when a wealthy American customer, Caroline Folke, requested a station-wagon version of the marque’s luxurious ‘W186’ 300C sedan.
Mercedes-Benz agreed and immediately engaged Binz to create the bespoke estate. Three were built, and even today the car looks as good as a factory option ever could.
Binz continued to work directly with Mercedes-Benz, creating ambulance versions of the W120 ‘Ponton’ sedan of the mid-to-late 1950s.
Today, Binz is the foremost coachbuilder of Mercedes-Benz-based limousines, ambulances and funeral vehicles.
The hearse used in Queen Elizabeth’s cortege is the E-Class-based Binz H4.
This car, as a 2009-2016 ‘W212’ in the procession, but now produced as a 2016-onwards ‘W213’, features an extended wheelbase and rear deck for an overall length of 5999mm – or 1104mm longer than the ‘S212’ E-Class station wagon (based on the W212 model).
The extension allows the car to maintain room for both front and back seat passengers, as well as a 2800mm casket deck. The windows on the rear bodywork are 750mm tall, with the vehicle’s overall height now 1920mm, or 446mm higher than the factory wagon.
Base vehicles are supplied in a specific pre-production guise direct from the Mercedes-Benz factory to Binz. The Binz factory is even referred to as ‘Building 42’ in the Sindelfingen manufacturing complex in Germany (where the E-Class is built), despite being located about 70km away.
Construction is completed using metal pressings provided by the same supplier as the factory Mercedes-Benz bodywork so, like the original 300C Estate, the Binz hearses are as close to factory-built as possible.
They retain the Airmatic air suspension of the regular wagons, and are available either as an E220d with a 2.0-litre turbo-diesel engine, or as an E300e petrol-electric plug-in hybrid.
While Mercedes-Benz no longer offers a ‘W213’ E-Class estate in Australia, Binz is listed on the Australian small volume import approval list (SEVS) to support local funeral fleets.
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