Benz bakkie in the making

THE Renault-Nissan Alliance and Daimler AG will expand their five-year strategic cooperation into the pickup truck segment.

Together, Nissan and Daimler will develop a one-ton bakkie for Mercedes-Benz. Mercedes-Benz recently announced its entry into this segment. The Mercedes-Benz pickup will share some of the architecture with the all-new Nissan NP300 but it will be engineered and designed by Daimler to meet the specific needs of its customers. The vehicle will have all of Mercedes-Benz’s distinctive characteristics and features.

The pickup will feature a double cab and will be targeted both at personal-use and commercial customers. The primary target markets for the truck are Europe, Australia, South Africa and Latin America.

Nissan is the world’s second-biggest one-ton pickup truck maker and has been building and selling one-ton pickups for more than 80 years. Since 1933, more than 14 million Nissan one-ton pickup trucks have been used to transport people and cargo, sometimes in the toughest circumstances. The NP300, sold under the name NP300 Navara and NP300 Frontier, was launched in June 2014 and is currently produced in Thailand and Mexico.

Nissan and Renault are already developing a one-ton pickup truck for Renault which will also share some common architecture with the Nissan NP300. The truck, which will have a distinctive Renault design, is Renault’s first one-ton pickup truck as well.

The Mercedes-Benz one-ton pickup truck will be built by Nissan in the Renault plant in Cordoba, Argentina, along with the Nissan NP300 and the Renault one-ton truck, for Latin America. The three trucks will also be built in the Nissan plant in Barcelona, Spain, for other markets, excluding North America. Production of the trucks at the two plants will start by the end of the decade.