Mercedes-Benz Plans First Pickup

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Bloomberg / March 27, 2015

Mercedes-Benz plans to make its first pickup truck, extending a push by manufacturers of upscale vehicles to invade territories traditionally dominated by mass-market competitors.

Mercedes will introduce a mid-size pickup by the end of the decade, focusing sales on Europe, Latin America, Australia and South Africa, the division of Stuttgart, Germany-based Daimler AG said Friday. The project will attempt to succeed where previous upscale trucks like General Motors Co.’s Cadillac Escalade EXT and Ford Motor Co.’s Lincoln Blackwood failed.

“The Mercedes-Benz pickup will contribute nicely to our global growth targets” as the vehicles are increasingly being put to personal use rather than just commercially, says Daimler Chief Executive Dieter Zetsche.

Germany’s luxury-car makers, which built their reputations on refined sedans, have been pushing into vehicle segments that would previously have been spurned as they compete for volume. Mercedes, the world’s third-largest premium-car manufacturer, plans to overtake Volkswagen AG’s Audi marque and market leader BMW AG in sales by the end of the decade.

The Mercedes pickup will be smaller than full-sized models that competitors offer in the U.S., where the segment is dominated by Dearborn, Michigan-based Ford’s bestselling F-150 and the Chevrolet Silverado from Detroit-based GM.

The Mercedes-Benz pickup, which will offer about 1 metric ton (2,205lb) of payload capacity, will be built by its commercial-van division.

To cut costs for the project, Daimler can tap technology from Japanese partner Nissan Motor Co. The automakers’ cooperation includes Nissan’s Infiniti brand using Mercedes underpinnings for a compact car. Yokohama-based Nissan makes Titan and Frontier trucks for the U.S. market.

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Mercedes-Benz: Our Pickup Won’t Be a “Fat Cowboy Truck”

Car & Driver / April 15, 2015

Well, now we know what the brass at Mercedes-Benz thinks of U.S. pickups. Speaking to Georg Kacher for Car Magazine, former AMG boss Volker Mornhinweg, who is currently in charge of Mercedes’ van division and thus the pickup project, explains that the Benz truck will not mix it up with the American haulers: “We’re not going to develop a fat cowboy truck for North America,” he’s quoted as saying. How’s them for fightin’ words?

Evidently that means Mercedes-Benz won’t build a pickup like this, or this, or this. As Mornhinweg correctly points out: “. . . the Big Three—Ford, GM, and Ram—already own about 90 percent of that market . . . newcomers like us would invariably fight an arduous uphill battle.”

Instead, the Mercedes-Benz pickup, which is expected to take the name GLT, will be a smaller, lighter entry, based on the Nissan NP300 Navara. Mornhinweg claims such a vehicle “is already perceived as a premium product in South America, Africa, and the Middle East.” Don’t take that to mean, however, that the pickup won’t come to North America. The truck is being considered for our market, and Mercedes is particularly eying Nissan’s Mexican plant for assembly, which would allow it to be sold in the U.S. without tariffs.

Like the NP300 (which is likely to be our next Frontier), the Mercedes will use a ladder frame and be offered in a single, four-door cab configuration. Expect Benz to offer four- and six-cylinder gasoline and diesel engines, a six-speed manual or seven-speed automatic, and 4MATIC all-wheel drive. A live rear axle will be standard, but buyers will be given the option of a independent rear suspension.

“The customers out there are waiting for the Mercedes among the mid-size pickups,” Mornhinweg said. We’ll see if he’s right when the GLT arrives in late 2018 or early 2019. Portly cowpokes, however, need not apply.

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