A disgruntled former employee went on a New Year's Eve rampage at a Mercedes plant in Spain, smashing up some 50 new people carriers with a stolen digger, police said Tuesday.

The 38-year-old suspect stole an earthmover, then drove 21 kilometres (13 miles) to the Mercedes plant in Vitoria in the northern Basque Country where he smashed through the entrance, police said.

"He used the (earthmover) to attack 50 people carriers that were in the car park," a spokesman for the Basque regional police said of the incident which happened at dawn on New Year's Eve.

Inaki Andres Lozares, a union representative at the Mercedes plant, gave a higher number, saying 69 vehicles were damaged in the rampage.

The factory management was not immediately available to comment on the incident, but Mercedes officials cited in the local press estimated the damage cost between two and five million euros (up to $6.1 million).

In one image published by the local press, at least one people carrier could be seen precariously perched on top of another, while others were badly dented.

Police said the man was a former employee.

Lozares said the employee had left the factory at the end of 2017 but obviously still felt "some frustration, not only with the management but with the employees" who number around 5,000.

"He also tried to enter the factory floor" with the digger, he said.

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