Like a child, Chris Beemer walked admiringly around his Mercedes Benz on Friday morning. The very expensive car of the Amsterdam entrepreneur – an S-class model – that a tenant took off six years ago, is shining again. Previously, it looked as if the car that was recovered in Ghana was irretrievably lost. “He has become beautiful!”
Carefully, Beemer opens the shiny door and gets behind the wheel. “Wow, it even smells like new!” He had last seen the Mercedes Benz six months ago, after it arrived in a container from Africa.
The car had ended up there after the theft and through a network of organized car thieves. “In Ghana, he had been standing in the blazing sun at a police station for three years, everything had been stolen from it and even tropical plants grew there,” says Chris Beemer. The transport to the Netherlands had given the final blow. “They handled it so strangely. It really didn’t look like it anymore, economically he was a total loss.”
“It was literally a corpse that had to be brought to life.”
Refurbishing didn’t seem an option, but there was Rick van Stippent of the Vught car restoration company Stipt Polish Point. He was willing to take on the job. “I found the injustice that someone takes something from you that you as an entrepreneur have invested your money in.” He decided to sink his teeth in. “And then I won’t let go.”
He worked on the car with a team of twenty mechanics for six months. “It was literally a corpse that had to be brought to life. We have used all the knowledge and expertise that we have in-house.”
He doubts he would do it again. “It became a prestige issue. I think it’s cool that we were able to do it. And the result is fantastic.”
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