Could Mercedes-Benz Wipe Away X-Class Shame With a Rugged G-Class Pickup Truck?

Showcased at a grand premiere in Cape Town, South Africa, during the summer, the new Mercedes-Benz X-Class wasn't actually a Daimler design 100% as the costs were lowered by using the pickup truck chassis from the Nissan Navara – the company had a very nice partnership with the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance at the time.

In a bid to set it apart from its lesser sibling, the Mercedes-Benz X-Class featured various premium technologies and features, as well as specific engines that were not shared with the Nissan Navara. However, it quickly turned out to be a flop, and the company had to cease production less than three years later, in the spring of 2020. Since then, of course, the X-Class has become a tabu subject among the company's corner office head honchos.

But what if some eager folks still want to see a Mercedes-Benz badge on a pickup truck model? Well, most likely, the model would need to feature a much better integration with the current range, at least. Maybe that's also the reasoning behind the imaginative realm of digital car content creators trying their CGI hand at revealing a new workhorse with luxury ethos. As such, Dimas Ramadhan, the virtual automotive artist behind the Digimods DESIGN channel on YouTube, has taken up the task of revealing the non-existent G-Class pickup truck.

Remember the other (arguably more significant) failure of Daimler – the botched "merger of equals/marriage made in heaven" with America's Chrysler? Well, the pixel master is not over it and thinks that Mercedes' G-Class could have a happy (luxury) workhorse life on the backbones of the Jeep Gladiator mid-size pickup truck. Whether that is true or not is irrelevant, though. This is merely wishful thinking, and even if Mercedes had the audacity to bring to market another pickup truck based on the G-Class, they would simply use its perfect body-on-frame underpinnings instead of importing a platform from a different automaker.

Anyway, the unofficial Mercedes-Benz G-Class truck still looks good, and the CGI artist's styling changes look spot on for a G-Wagen with an open bed tucked behind the cabin. By the way, if you want more wacky ideas like this one, the author also recently cooked up a Lamborghini 'LM003' pickup truck based on the Urus or even a Volvo pickup truck based on the electric EX30 to fend off the (digital) hordes of Rivian R1Ts, GMC Hummer EVs, and Ford F-150 Lightnings! So, which one would you take home if you were allowed to make them your wishful thinking project from a genie in a bottle?