Mercedes-Benz Is on the X-Class Defensive - Is It Really More Than Just Badge Engineering?

Australia’s pickup truck markets wants to know: is the Mercedes-Benz X-Class more than just a badge-engineered Nissan Navara?

“This is hardly a double badge,” Mercedes-Benz Vans’ global boss Volker Mornhinweg told Motoring.

But there’s a tendency to see matters another way. The production X-Class, not yet bound for North America’s nonexistent premium midsize pickup truck market, isn’t exactly a carbon copy of the X-Class Concept shown in late 2016.

Moreover, that X-Class gear lever looks downright familiar to Navara drivers.

Mornhinweg isn’t denying the intrinsic partnership between Daimler and Nissan-Renault. Acknowledging that Mercedes-Benz doesn’t commonly seek platform partners in the passenger car sector, Mornhinweg says, “We had a target of introducing the car at a short-term notice, and as it’s a global product, we could not build-up one facility for this product.” Indeed, that inability to quickly build a U.S. factory for the X-Class all but eliminates the X-Class from reaching the U.S. market because of high Chicken Tax import tariffs.

“Therefore,” says Mercedes-Benz’s Mornhinweg, “we discussed it with Nissan, if they are keen or have the willingness to work with us. They have a long tradition of doing pickups, and their base overall was useable for us, so we had it done.”

Mercedes-Benz would have been “stupid” to distinguish parts “a customer cannot feel or see,” Mornhinweg says, “because you need those economies of scale.”

To be fair to the X-Class, it isn’t just a Navara. It’s bigger: 3.3 inches longer and 2.8 inches wider despite riding on the same wheelbase. This is bound to alter the styling, though the two pickups naturally look similar when viewed from the side, as pickups are wont to do. But the Benz wears GM-like squared wheel arches. The X-Class’s front end is decidedly Benz GLS-like; only the housing for the fog lights maintains a similar shape. The Navara’s tailgate is more distinctive; the X-Class’s more plain. Inside, Mercedes-Benz plants a screen atop the vents as in many of its passenger cars and also slots its touchpad/control wheel in the center console.

They’re not the same trucks. Under the skin, Mercedes-Benz says the X-Class’s coil springs are heavier, the dampers are re-valved, and the anti-roll bars are thicker. The front track is wider.

As a result, “To be honest there was no challenge [to improving the Navara chassis],” Mornhinweg says, seemingly insulting Mercedes-Benz’s truck donor/partner, “because we had a clear development target of what we’d like to achieve with the pickup when it comes to driveability, comfort, suspension, and turn-in.”

So the X-Class isn’t merely a Navara. Yet given the degree to which consumers already know that the first Mercedes-Benz pickup is based on a Nissan, all of those detailed changes and styling alterations may not be enough to sufficiently distinguish the new Spain/Argentina-built German truck.

[Images: Mercedes-Benz, Nissan]

Timothy Cain is a contributing analyst at The Truth About Cars and Autofocus.ca and the founder and former editor of GoodCarBadCar.net. Follow on Twitter @timcaincars.