Mercedes-Benz’s skunkworks from Affalterbach have said, categorically, that it will not be responding to the Ford Ranger Raptor the way everyone else has. While AMG has fettled with SUVs and the ‘utilitarian’ G-Wagon, the X-Class ute will not get the AMG treatment, not even by uprating the 3.0-litre V6 turbodiesel mill that we now get in the X350d.
“There will be no X-Class AMG. Never. O Chance. We’re too busy. We’re fully locked in to our programs. Is there demand in Australia?” — Tobias Moers, President, Mercedes-AMG
Being the most-expensive ute on sale in most markets, the idea of an AMG X-Class doesn’t make much business sense, particularly when considering the sheer cost of shoehorning one of AMG’s V6 or V8 mills under the bonnet. That’s before considering the complexity of the necessary upgrades to the braking and suspension systems, as well as the myriad of small software revisions necessary to make it all work.
But that perhaps isn’t the main reason why a hot X-Class is a no-go. Perhaps the icing on the cake is the fact that an AMG X-Class just wouldn’t fit in culturally, given that it’s based on a platform jointly-developed between Renault and Nissan. Moers even said “AMG culture would be a difficult fit with Nissan & Renault cultures” to our friends at CarSales, suggesting that AMG-ing an X-Class could be made interminably more challenging by the difference in objectives and goals between the three companies.
It’d have been interesting to see what a full-fat X-Class AMG would have looked like, but considering that it’s a pretty accomplished premium ute as it is, perhaps it ought to just stick to what it’s demonstrated ability in doing, rather than risk overreaching its capabilities and perhaps embarrassing itself in the process.
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