The Mercedes-Renault/Nissan alliance is one of those arrangements you probably have forgotten about until you see an announcement like this. It's also very telling about the kind of truck Mercedes wants, since they already make nice, useful work pickup trucks.
Nothing's entirely clear about this new, Nissan Frontier/Navara-based pickup yet, other than it appears to be a more luxurious truck, and it won't be coming to the US. Instead, it's targeted at other truck-loving areas in Europe, Australia, Souths of the American and African varietals, and Europe.
I am a bit surprised a luxury-looking mid-size pickup like this isn't coming to the US, since I initially assumed that was the whole point of it. In fact, I originally wrote this lamenting that we were getting this blinged-out, chrome-laden fancy-wheels instead of one of the great and useful Sprinter-based pickups. But it looks like I was wrong.
I'm also not yet sure Andrew is totally right in that this will be a work truck. Mercedes already has a number of useful, well-known work truck options around the world; if you wanted a work pickup, why would it be something like what these renders are showing instead of one of the Sprinter-based ones?
So, here's what we do know: the truck is based on Nissan's Navara, which we know as the Frontier. Based on the drawings, it's a much more US-style of pickup truck, with a long hood and a nice, chrome-laden, ridiculous grille. It looks like one of the hardly-ever-dirty status trucks we have all over the US.
Maybe I'm wrong? Maybe this is a new line of work trucks? Or maybe Mercedes is going to really introduce the luxo-truck idea to Europe in a big way?
I guess we'll see. Either way, have fun with your blinged-out Datsun, Mercedes.
NOTE: This post has been heavily reworked from an earlier version, where I was working under the idea that this truck was bound for the US market. It now seems that's not the case. My apologies.