Mercedes might be better known for extravagance autos, however with a lineup of vans and rough 4×4 fans like the Unimog and G-Class, the three-pointed star likewise twinkles from the grille of outdoors vehicles of each size and style, most prominently Marco Polo camper vans. During the current month’s CMT appear, Mercedes is demonstrating a totally new category of camper: the X-Class pickup camper. With assistance from several German outdoors vehicle authorities, the X-Class is very prepared to investigate the off-beaten way and make camp for a night or few.
As helpful as a pickup truck is for work and regular assignments, it’s similarly valuable for pulling brief safe house, outdoors instruments and open air entertainment equip into the wild. It’s the reason we see such huge numbers of Tacoma-based endeavor vehicles and camper modules at Overland Expo every year.
Since Mercedes has its very own pickup, it’s anxious to indicate how it can function as a rough, able camper. Its new CMT ideas aren’t precisely bleeding edge material, since they fundamentally simply adjust existing pickup camper answers for the X-Class, yet there’s unquestionably something cool about a Mercedes pickup camper and we anticipate seeing our first out in nature.
For its most completely prepared X-Class camper idea, Mercedes worked with pickup camper authority Tischer. The sandwich-walled slide-in Tischer camper on board the dark blue X-Class incorporates a kitchen with three-burner stove, a primary bed in the over-taxicab nook, a three-man sitting zone/convertible bed, and a lavatory with swivel latrine, foldaway sink and shower – not a terrible design for a smaller bed-top camper.
For those that prefer simpler and lighter, Mercedes likewise has a X-Class set-up from VanEssa, an organization it additionally worked with in front of a year ago’s Düsseldorf salon. The VanEssa equipment seems indistinguishable to the VW Amarok adaptation we looked at last year, pairing a full slide-out kitchen on one side with a pullout storage tray on the other. To add a touch of Mercedes luxury, the package includes a teak wood cover and tailgate trim. The cover opens up 45 degrees with the help of integrated struts.
VanEssa’s kitchen gives full nourishment stockpiling and cooking capacities, joining a cooler/cooler, sink and capacity drawers, one of which holds a solitary burner stove – only thing missing is the mini beer keg that VanEssa showed on the Amarok package. The VanEssa X-Class doesn’t give any dozing cover, however those hoping to remain the night could simply lift a rooftop top tent up above the cap or pitch one on the ground by the truck.
Alongside the new-look X-Class campers, Mercedes will bring “Release” models of the Marco Polo, Marco Polo Activity and Marco Polo Horizon to CMT. In view of the achievement it’s had with the left hand-drive Marco Polo, it will dispatch a right-hand-drive Marco Polo Horizon in Great Britain and Japan come spring.
Another Marco Polo feature is an accessible nine-speaker Jehnert sound framework that crosses over any barrier between on-street and at-camp uses with “driving” and “living” modes. In driving mode, the framework fires music at the driver and front traveler, while living mode disperses it all through the camper lodge. The framework additionally associates with a cell phone through Bluetooth, enabling inhabitants to control it from around the van, in the case of sitting in a seat, lying in the fly up rooftop bed or hanging out under the outside canopy. The Jehnert alternative will go live in April.
