Volkswagen mocks Mercedes-Benz ute

It's no secret that Mercedes-Benz's first one-tonne ute, the upcoming X-Class, is based on the Nissan Navara. It's built in a Nissan factory in Spain and the two dual-cab trucks look very similar from the outside, at least in side profile.

With price tags rising beyond $80,000 for the top-spec V6 diesel model, and past $95,000 with options fitted, Mercedes-Benz is touting its new ute as the world's first luxury pick-up.

But not everyone's convinced.

"It's very difficult to disguise a Nissan Navara," Volkswagen Australia's corporate communications boss Paul Pottinger told motoring.com.au after explaining he'd seen the ute in the metal at the Frankfurt motor show.

Although he didn't quite go down the "lipstick on a pig" path, he's not alone in his view of the X-Class' design.

Critics and the public alike were taken by surprise when Mercedes-Benz revealed the first concept vehicles in October 2016. They were impressive.

At the X-Class concept launch, Benz' global design chief Gorden Wagener said "The overall design, proportions, this is pretty much production [ready]."

The design promised and the vehicle delivered were two very different things, but Pottinger says the design is the least of Mercedes' problems.

"If I was a buyer I might be surprised [with the quality]. When a Mercedes-Benz owner opens the door and sees Nissan hinges, the game might be up," he said.

Australia's ute market is massive, with the two top-selling cars in this country now the Toyota HiLux and Ford Ranger. Mercedes wants in and after Infiniti snaffled the A-Class to develop a small-car range with Q30 and QX30 models, Nissan returned the favour with its Navara and the Mercedes-Benz X-Class was born.

Nissan will also produce the Alaskan ute for alliance partner Renault, and it will go on sale globally next year with even fewer changes than the X-Class, which wears bespoke body panels and a new interior but shares the Navara's four-cylinder diesel engines.

One of the Mercedes ute's vehicle's closest competitors, the Volkswagen Amarok, also runs four-cylinder and V6 engines and delivers class-leading ride comfort as determined in our latest eight-ute comparison test.

The Amarok is Volkswagen's second-best-selling vehicle after the Golf and Volkswagen is naturally keen to protect its patch.

"Amarok has been a great brand ambassador for us," observed Pottinger. "It's put VW back on the map in a commercial sense that we haven't seen since the old Kombi days."

The VW exec hinted that there are several more surprises in store for the Amarok soon, but he wouldn’t say if there was a hard-core Ford Ranger Raptor competitor in the works.

"We have a number of iterations of the current model coming, new price points and a fair bit of discussion on future powertrains and things like that," stated Pottinger, refusing to be drawn on details.

However, he did confirm that an expanded range of accessories – we can only assume beefy body mods too – are "not far off, in fact they're coming soon".

When conversation returned to the X-Class, the Volkswagen executive declined to provide a personal opinion on the design of the Mercedes-Benz but did confess he was "very interested" to see how it fares in the Aussie marketplace.

Mercedes has defended its ute as being more than a rebadged Nissan Navara but the comparisons are unlikely to go away any time soon.

"I won't give an opinion on the [X-Class] styling, but I think it perhaps could be a polarising design."