Mercedes-Benz parent company Daimler announced Tuesday that it will continue its partnership with Nissan as the two companies work on a midsize, Mercedes-branded pickup truck.
According to a statement jointly prepared by the two automakers, the Mercedes pickup will be marketed to commercial customers and regular consumers, and will partly be based on the new Nissan NP300. This joint endeavor, said Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche, would be instrumental as the German company hopes to make further inroads in the international market. “Entering the rapidly growing segment of midsize pickups is an important step in continuing our global growth path,” he said. “Thanks to our well-established partnership with the Renault-Nissan Alliance, we are able to drastically reduce the time and cost to enter this key segment.”
Reports of a midsized Mercedes pickup had started circulating late in March, as the company was said to be releasing this pickup for customers outside of North America. The truck will be manufactured by Nissan in the Japanese company’s Cordoba, Argentina facility for the Latin American market, and will also be built in Nissan’s Barcelona plant for other markets outside of North America; also to be manufactured in the aforementioned plants are the NP300 and a Renault truck.