The Mercedes-Benz X-class pickup is bound for production soon, but it won?t be offered on the U.S. market, Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche said at the Geneva auto show. Why not" Because it will be a mid-size pickup, but, Zetsche explained, the best business case (think profit margin) in the U.S. market is made with full-size trucks. Pickups sell in huge numbers in the United States, but the trucks that make the money are enormous by global standards.
The X-class looks impressively large on the Geneva show floor, yet it would be dwarfed by the gigantic offerings of the traditional players in America. That?s because it is based on the Navara, Nissan?s lower-level pickup truck, which is a more recent product that we expect will soon replace the older model still sold in the U.S. as the Frontier. The X-class will be a five-seat vehicle that will be built at Nissan/Renault factories for virtually every other market in the world. A Renault-badged version also is in the works. Customers outside the U.S. can expect to get a mid-size truck that is somewhat removed from its humble Nissan origins. The X-class will be a ?premium truck,? Zetsche emphasized, in line with the Mercedes brand?s passenger-car offerings and not with its vans and trucks, which are among the value leaders in their respective segments. The Mercedes-badged truck has its own suspension and range of powertrain offerings, topped by a four-by-four model with a turbo-diesel V-6.

The toughest competitor for the X-cl...