posted at the Cohort by crash71100
Premium brand pickups (so far) have been a bust. The Lincoln Blackwood was the Edsel of pickups, and the later Mark LT wasn’t a whole lot more successful either. Cadillac’s Escalade EXT was another dud. But that didn’t give that irrepressibly optimist Dieter Zetsche, Daimler Chairman and head of Mercedes cars any pause when he announced in 2015 that Mercedes would build the first successful premium brand pickup.
He did say it was going to be “co-developed” with the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance, but what he failed to say was it it would in essence be a badge-engineered Nissan Navara, and not have the exclusive body and image that Mercedes buyers might just expect from the the three-pointed star brand.
The results were…predictable.
Here’s the Nissan Navara. See the resemblance problem? And to put this in context, the Navara is just the current evolution of the long line of Nissan compact pickups that go all the way back to the 1950s, and were of course sold here very successfully from the early ’60s on, ater known as the Frontier. This generation of Navara was not sold in the US, as the latest generation (2022) Frontier is a somewhat larger and wider truck.
Here’s a rear shot of the X-Class from another source on the web. It was slated to be only available in Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Latin America, and Africa; obviously North America was not going to go for this. But it turned out those other parts of the world didn’t either. In its first year (2018) just 16,700 were sold in all markets; that dropped to 15,300 in 2019. Production ended in 2020.
How about a Maybach pickup?
There are moments when I wonder what Mercedes thinks that three pointed star is really worth.
“Daimler’s Blackwood”, sometimes it’s tempted to said “Dailmer’s Cimarron”. 😉
Maybe if they had made the three-pointed star on the grille bigger . . . .
And make it light up!
Similar concept (and lack of success) to the Aston Martin Cygnet.
I suppose the one advantage it held (or was perhaps thought to differentiate the situation) is that the potential buyer of an X-Class isn’t approaching the showroom while walking through a sea of identical Nissan Frontiers unlike what faced a buyer of a Lincoln Blackwood or Mark LT at the F-150 emporium being that those are inevitably paired.
One of the nicer looking Mercedes models – doesn’t suffer from the droopy lines of their other offerings….
According to a trusted website ( https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-european/cc-outtake-mercedes-benz-x250d/ ) there is no shared sheetmetal. Do we believe that claim? The doors at least look mighty similar. As does the body shell but I cannot readily tell if it is identical. Would make sense if it is.
Even if it shares no metal, it appears to share ALL the glass. If there are only superficial metal differences, it really doesn’t matter that they’re not interchangeable.
I’d obviously forgotten about that post. And question the part where it said that the X-Class’ body was 2.8″ wider than the Navara’s. It doesn’t look like it, and it I’d be surprised that they would spend the considerable amount it would take to have done that.
Clearly there’s some differences in the external skins of the two. But that’s not really very difficult or expensive, as modern tooling is a lot cheaper than it used once be. But the underlying elements are all-too obviously the same.
Standard running boards (versus optional on the Nissan) adds a couple inches.
I wrote the article and Paul questioned the 2.8″ width difference then too. I agree it doesn’t appear to be that much wider, but as I posted previously this was sourced from Car and Driver. I’d hope they’d get there facts straight. Here is the quote from C/D:
“If it looks more substantial than the Nissan, that’s because Daimler has widened the track—and the bodywork—by a full 2.8 inches. The two trucks will be built on the same assembly lines, but no exterior sheetmetal or glass is interchangeable. The door geometry—the hinges, latches, and their locations—is the same, but the panels are all brand specific. ”
That statement of the bodywork and track being 2.8″ wider is kind of odd now that I re-read it. Are they both 2.8″ wider, or just the track or just the body, or?? But then Car and Driver goes on to say: “The widened body allows more generous interior space than the Navara offers. ”
That’s interesting, it’s sort of like the Mercedes 500E of pickup trucks…sort of. Ok, no, not really.
The most recent Nissan Quest was a widened Nissan Elgrand, wider body and track too so that brings it into the recent Nissan ballpark.
If for example the windshield is 2.8″ wider, then due to the curvature of it the adjoining roof and cowl panels would be shaped differently as well, this seems like quite a big project. Doors could still be the same if the roof curvature was subtly different due to the span.
Assuming that extra space made it into the interior as implied, 2.8″ would be noticeable in shoulder room if sampled back to back, but overall it seems like an awfully big investment for something that fundamentally may in fact be different but still looks VERY(too?) close to the truck it’s obviously based on and with hindsight was a flop perhaps due at least partly to that. I’m not really a fan of the Lincoln or the Cadillac Avalanche but both appear to have been far smaller investments if this is true.
On a slightly different note, I’m guessing the Mercedes was inspired at least in part by the VW Amarok, which my memory tells me is a bit wider than the non-US Frontier, both of which I see every once in a while around here with south of the border plates, so it’s not completely unreasonable to envision this potentially occurring.
I just found a few detailed comparisons of the two in Europe and Australia. As is all-too obvious, the X-Class body is not wider. Its front track is a bit wider, but the rear track is the same as the Navara.
There are a number of differences, but not in the width of the body, which would be absurdly expensive given that the whole point was to share production facilities and efficiencies.
That extra 2.8″ in width given in some specs has to be the standard running boards.
One would be able to tell the difference in width just looking at it. I found a JDM Previa on the street here the other day; from a block away, I could the its proportions from the rear were decidedly off. The JDM version is about that same amount narrower. It’s extremely obvious, unless you don’t have an eye for that kind of thing.
My thought was that if there was a difference in the body width it was in the door design. The glass not interchanging was making me think that maybe the door design was altered, even though they appear the same. However, looking at the photos it doesn’t seem there is any visible difference. The track does look wider on the MB, but I don’t see any extra width at the running boards. It seems odd that C/D would claim more interior space due to width, but I didn’t take the time to actually check the interior dimensions.
The 2.8″ extra width would not be noticed as much by customers as the clear similarity to the cheaper Nissan, despite suppsedly all the bodywork panels being different. Seemed a lot of money to spend on differentiation which Jo Public never saw. Still there seemed a reasonable number of folks who were bedazzled by that 3 pointed star to shell out up to 50% more than the equivalent Nissan cost.
So anyone want to speculate that while you can’t sell an expensive pickup with a luxury badge, you can easily sell an expensive pickup-based SUV with a luxury badge (see original Escalade, Navagator, to a lesser extend Jeep Grand Wagoneer, etc.)? What’s different about the pickup market compared to the SUV market that the latter values a luxury badge whereas the former doesn’t?
Considering where this truck was being sold, luxury and truck was always going to be a tough sale. And since Escalades, Navigators, and Grand Wagoneers aren’t sold in most of the ” X-Class ” intended markets, either, your question borders on moot.
(Re: Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Latin America, Africa.)
It would have made more sense to sell it where the Nissan equivalent was not sold.
Sure all the panels look to be different, but some of the differences are very subtle, and it looks like everything would just bolt on to an identical inner structure. And that wrap-over hood treatment is pretty distinctive, as in “Hey, that panel looks the same as John’s Navara over there!”
Who’d have imagined the day when a Mercedes-Benz would be a cheap reskinned Nissan? “How much prestige can we milk off this badge?” – shades of ’80s-’90s GM management…..
I used to see these regularly, at least during the summer. You see, we are avid watchers of World Cup pro mountain bike racing on TV, and Mercedes has sponsored the series for quite a while. Each course would have many X-Class pickups at key locations, often very close to the speeding bikes so the TV product placement was almost continual. After the demise of the X -Class, their place has been taken by V-Class vans (Metris in the US). Although Sprinters are very popular with mountain bikers here in the US, I suppose they’re really too large for convenient personal use in most parts of Europe, thus marketing the V-Class to mountain bikers. The paddock areas at these races do seem to be full of team Sprinters, of course … far more of them than Transits or Ducato’s.
I believe there were some mechanical upgrades under the skin, but many people won’t pay for stuff they can’t see….
From what I remember, the EXT was more “middling performer” than outright dud. And GM just applied for a trademark on the name a few days ago. Do we think it’s going to have a better outcome as an EV truck?
Mercedes-Benz also offer the Citan compact panel van in Europe (and elsewhere I suspect but not the US?), which is a badge engineered Renault Kangoo, Renault’s competitor tot he Fiat Doblo/RAM Promaster City
You are correct, it is not offered in the US. We are limited to the Metris and the Sprinter as far as Mercedes-badged commercial-type vehicles are concerned. The whole set of Mercedes/Renault/Nissan tie-ups is very interesting.
I still can’t believe Mercedes were willing to put their badge on these awful Kangoo vans !
Western kitsch bromance?
I wonder if it would’ve done better if they had offered 2wd and regular cab/7′ box models, featuring them prominently in the ads, in work-truck white with steel wheels and matte-black bumpers doing work-truck things.
And if they’d given it an actual model name following their truck and van name convention rather than a letter “Class” per their car/SUV one.
It was clear by then that in America the high-end personal pickup buyer wanted authenticity rather than the class distinction of a luxury brand. I wonder what studies Mercedes had that European buyers thought otherwise.
Where I think they went wrong was not offering it as a lower-spec more commercially oriented model. MB Vans already have a significant following, it would seem to me to have been best to add another offering in the business/light commercial area, rather than chasing the top end private buyer.
Nissan body with minor changes and a Mercedes diesel I see quite a few of them here they seem to be sold by Mercedes truck agents
No, the V6 diesel is a Mercedes’ unit, the 4-cylinder is a Renault unit, same as the Navara. They’re not produced anymore, but we’re sold through the van network.
It would make some sense as a commercial truck product to complement Mercedes’ van lineup. A luxury pickup with a three pointed star sounds like the V-Class which is a luxury trim version of the Metris/Vito van and IIRC sold poorly to individuals, although it’s popular as a shuttle van and taxi.
Of course the actual Mercedes commercial pickup in most markets is a Sprinter chassis cab with a truck bed and the luxury “pickup” is a G-Wagen.
I don’t know about other countries but here in Austria there is no market for “European-size” (that is, what you call in the US “compact” pick ups) luxury pick ups. Those who want such a thing buy the US-made, full-size variety – that type of buyer would _never_ consider anything MB. The typical contractor/company owner with a family who looks for a pick up would not be interested in forking out the extra just to have the star on the grill, not when a perfectly good Nissan/VW/Ford/Toyota/Isuzu is also available (€60k v €40k). MB hourly rates (service/repairs) are also not known to be good value so to speak. Then there is a kind of loss of face which would always arise in such joint ventures (that is, when it’s clear that the maker using another’s design is clearly capable of developing its own, maybe even better product but decides to take the cheap option (see also the current Toyota Supra)).
The X-Class was an interesting concept, which on paper might have worked, but fell short in reality. There are a few around here in NZ; usually done out with big wheels etc, and they look reasonable enough. My car-disinterested hubby saw an X-Class and said “Oh, I didn’t realise Mercedes made utes now”, so the Mercedes grille and emblem probably had impact among people who don’t care about the automotive industry but do recognise ‘prestige’ badges.
I guess MB was looking at the VW Amarok when they ‘created’ the X-Class, but the difference is the Amarok was all VW’s own work, which meant it was distinctive-looking. Good-looking too, and popular here – if I was in the market for a ute, an Amarok would be top of my list because it’s a little different. Of course the new Amarok will be based on the Ford Ranger, so it’ll be interesting to see whether the new Amarok is different enough to retain its reputation, or whether it’ll go the way of the X-Class.