Mercedes reportedly plans three trims for the pickup to span a wide breadth of customers' needs. The base model would be a contractor-grade work truck with few frills, optional all-wheel drive, and a 2.3-liter four-cylinder diesel with 188 horsepower. The mid-level version would use the same engine but have more amenities. Finally, the top one would pile on luxury features and get a six-cylinder diesel with around 255 horsepower. According to CarAdvice's insider, prices in Australia would start at 55,000 Australian dollars ($38,900 at current exchange rates) and swell to 80,000 ($56,500) for the highest trim.
Mercedes' pickup will share a platform with the Nissan NP300 Navara, but the German company's designers will differentiate them as much as possible. "Yes, to come to an attractive price we are using a common platform, but all the rest is done by Mercedes – to design, to develop the vehicle specifically to meet Mercedes criteria," Daimler board member Thomas Weber said to CarAdvice.
Earlier rumors called the pickup the GLT, but this insider claims that X-Class or Z-Class are the current frontrunners. Mercedes reportedly favors X-Class because it makes the truck sound tougher.
Whatever Mercedes calls the pickup, there's only a glimmer of hope for it to come to the US. The company plans to build them in Spain and Argentina, which means the infamous chicken tax could inflate prices here on the imported model. Instead, the Mercedes truck would compete against the Volkswagen Amarok and Ford Ranger in markets like Europe, Australia, and Latin America.
