Urambo Tauro has been posting their unfinished drafts, I thought I’d join in with a few drafts I wasn’t planning on posting anyways. This one has been around 90% done for quite a while. I started this in November 2018, expect typos, inaccuracies and rough edges. It would probably be quite different were I to write it again today.
One thing I’ve always wondered is how Mercedes-Benz can manage so many utilitarian brands, such as Mercedes trucks and buses, and still keep it’s oh-so-revered brand image. Sure for a couple of areas, including North America, don’t get stuff like Mercedes coaches and forward cab trucks, but they still sell a van or two, presumably due to not risking brand dilution. But for the rest of the world, the Mercedes badge can be seen pinned to any number of hardworking workhorses.
Mercedes’ lineup is 90% identical around the world, and wouldn’t be interesting enough for an entry in my badly named A list of every: series, so think of this post as a spinoff. Kinda. I mean, who cares?
Now I want to clear up a few thing first. I see a few commentators think that Mercedes in Europe is considered similar to any other car, and lacks any sort of brand cachet here at all, which is why they can sell more utilitarian vehicles in Europe. Now I can’t speak much for the rest of Europe, other than it’s pretty similar, but in the UK at least, there’s a hint of truth in that statement. There is, perhaps unsurprisingly a much higher ratio of Mercedes, BMWs and Audis in Europe than elsewhere, where they’re somewhat uncommon (obviously varies). In Europe however, these European luxury cars are as common as Ford Fiestas. Oh crap, bad analogy, ummmmm......Priuses? Prii? Anyways, sure they’re alot more common, but they’re still considered fancy, they still have that allure, just probably alot more diluted. Have a new Mercedes, and you’ll still be seen as doing decent for yourself (by materialistic people I guess).
Another thing to note, although Mercedes was at the forefront of making soulless alphanumeric names, pretty much all of their non passenger models have proper names. And in every segment other than passenger cars, Mercedes is a run of the mill mainstream manufacture, their models having little to no luxury advantages than their competitors.
Another thing, the Metris in America is known as the Vito elsewhere. A basic panel van/minibus. And there’s a V-Class, which is a proper luxury Mercedes version. Hence the -Class suffix.
- Vito / Metris: Cargo van
- Vito Tourer / Metris Passenger / Valante: Passenger van, formerly called Viano
- V-Class: Luxury Passenger van
- eVito: Electric Vito
- EQV: Electric V-Class with more range
- Marco Polo: V-Class campervan with kitchen
- Marco Polo Horzon: V-Class campervan
- Marco Polo Activity: Vito campervan
Not for Americans is the Mercedes Citan, a re-engineered Renault Kangoo, which I made a whole ode to a while back, and touched on the Citan too.
And there’s the X-Class, which has gotten enough publicity as it is. Although, I never understood why it was called X-Class for all versions, even the workhorse spec ones. Aren’t -Class names reserved for standard Mercedes luxury?
Now every single time the G-Class is mentioned, a comment inevitably pops up proclaiming why they don’t make a stripped down off-road version of the G-Class, only to be buried with replies of “They already do.” (Also can be seen with the Land Cruiser 200). It’s called the G-Class Professional, and yes it has a -Class name, despite not being fancy. Come to think of it, you know what the perfect name would be instead: G-Wagon.
Exclusive to Oceania (And probably a few other places), their G-Class Professional is actually the OG 461, which they still make for the military. As you can see, it’s far from a stripped back luxury model, but a model that was never luxurious to begin with. It starts at 109,900 Australian dollars, which is WAY too much considering what it is.
Oh yeah, and there’s a Cab Chassis pickup version available too. Funnily enough there’s a confusingly named Edition PUR version with luxuries such as heated leather seats, electric mirrors and a radio and CD player. Minus the hilarious irony, isn’t that the exact opposite of what PUR(e) means? There used to be a G-Class Professional equivalent in Europe, which was actually the modern luxurious G-class, but stripped down.
And there’s also the Russian exclusive Sprinter Classic. It since got a very subtle facelift (The front bumper is different, I swear!)
But anyways I feel most of this is somewhat common knowledge, so moving onto the lorries.
As you can see Mercedes has a naming scheme of nonsensical words beginning with the letter A. I’m not knowledgeable enough in lorries to inform you of the distinction between them all, so instead you can look at this nice picture of them.
Well except for the Mercedes Econic, which completely bucks that trend of names beginning with A. What gives? I guess it’s because the Econic isn’t really meant for hauling cargo like the others and is instead used almost exclusively for Garbage trucks and the occasional fire engine. Now also sold as the Freightliner Econic for ze Muricans, just like the Sprinter. A rebadged Mercedes! What a peculiar sight!
Mercedes really thinks of the Econic as the outcast child, as it’s cast out to the MERCEDES-BENZ SPECIAL TRUCKS division. Which isn’t really a bad thing, as this is where all the badass trucks are, with the Unimog, and it’s lesser known big brother, the Zetros. But man is the Econic so out of place though.
Aww! This is the Mercedes Accelo, and it’s really weird seeing the Mercedes badge on such a cheap looking thing! Fully designed by Mercedes Brasil, and it’s hard to believe that this isn’t some Mitsubishi rebadge job or something.
In fact, South America is simply a timeline for old Mercedes truck models, all three models shown above have been replaced by new versions elsewhere in the world, but here they’re still kicking.
Remember the classic Short Bonnet trucks? They still exist! It’s called the Mercedes Atron (However forward cab Atrons do exist) and it’s built in Argentina! It hasn’t exactly inherited it’s predecessors’ handsome looks very well.
Now let’s move onto some of the buses. Mercedes has a whole lineup of including some hilarious looking public transport versions of the Sprinter.
There’s also the eCitaro, an electric version of their standard CItaro bus, which looks remarkably like it’s concept.
They also sell a few region specific models around the world, such as this Indian Mercedes-Benz Super High Deck 2436. Catchy name!
I’ll be back with the buses, but first a brief look at their Military division.
The collective powers of every single division of Mercedes join hands together to form an alliance known as Mercedes-Benz Avengers Defense Vehicles. Well except for coaches, they’ll be kinda useless. And smart I guess. Hmmm, how about remote controlled fortwos with bombs strapped to them?
Like I mentioned, they still produce the original OG 461 for military, a ton of cool variations, such as armoured versions and 6 wheelers (which the 6x6 was developed from).
Umm, could someone please tell me what is the point of a convertible Unimog? Don’t get me wrong, this thing is amazing, but I fail to see the use of folding windscreen in warfare. I thought the point is to not get shot?
To be fair, there’s not too much to say about their military vehicles, other than offroad lorries look frickin’ sweet.
Now, time to whip out la pièce de résistance! Now, like alot of other companies, Mercedes sells bare chassis for companies to develop their own buses and coach bodies off. Mercedes does the mechanical, The Cool Coach Company Ltd. does the body and interior.
This is pretty common, although Mercedes-Benz Buses Mexico sells these finished coaches as their own Mercedes models, rather than the company who produced the body, although I’m sure they don’t mind as they get to stick that oh so lustrous star on their buses. But the result are some of the weirdest looking official vehicles ever sold under the Mercedes name.
I highly suggest you to look at their lineup here and have a laugh at the hilarious buses. Some had some effort put in to kinda resemble a proper Mercedes (But the rest of the design is so incoherent it just looks even more hilarious), whilst some just have Mercedes badges half heartily slapped on existing bus designs. Heck, one of them is literally just an unchanged Freightliner!
So that’s a look at Mercedes’ non-passenger vehicles. Who knew Mercedes would have such variety in models around the world?
I feel bad for other companies though, they spend millions and spend decades developing the perfect commercial vehicle, only to be outsold by a Renault, because it has a Mercedes badge on it. Completely unfair.
I cancelled this as I questioned how official “Mercedes-Benz Autobuses Mexico” is. I knew Mercedes probably didn’t design the buses themselves, but it was more about whether they officially endorsed and marketed them as their own. I think they are though, but even than their model list appears to be gone, I wish I had a screengrab of all the models they offered, they were hilarious regardless of their authenticity. I would do more research, especially about coach coachbuilding in general but oh well. The idea of Mercedes proudly offering around 30 of these awful looking buses was the crux of the whole post, the rest sorta fell apart after that. I wasn’t sure how interesting the the rest was on it’s own, and I question whether some of my jokes were actually funny. I haven’t checked how accurate this post still is, and how many models mentioned are still on sale, but I do know you can no longer get a G-Class Professional :( or an X-Class. I also found that production of short-bonnets continued way on Iran, they may even still make them, I don’t know how affiliated they still are to Mercedes though.
I found it fitting that on potentially my last long form post on OppOG, I linked my very first Oppo post, also focused on a foreign Mercedes commercial vehicle: the Sprinter Classic. Turns out, production just ended. The symbolism is off the charts. Anyways, I’m rambling, who on Earth is reading this?, I still want to know why convertible Unimogs exist, Peace.