Photo: Kleber Silva on Behance
Remember the Blackwood and the Mark LT from Lincoln? Neither has created a niche in the truck market, and neither is likely to return given the popularity of the F-Series and the F-150 Limited in standard spec.
If the Lincoln Motor Company were to bring back those two, the Blackwood and Mark LT would have to compete against a workhorse that kicks off at $67,735 even though it wears Ford logos up front, on the steering wheel, and on the tailgate. Whichever way you try to make a business case for a Lincoln truck, it won’t happen. This gets us to Mercedes-Benz and the X-Class.
Previewed with great pomp and circumstance, the W470 raised a few eyebrows when the three-pointed star revealed the production model. The Nissan Navara-like plastic in the cabin is one thing, but the truck had nothing to do with Mercedes-Benz other than a six-cylinder turbo diesel which is 15 years old this year.
A little over 15,000 units were sold in the entire world in 2019, forcing Merc to pull the plug on the X-Class. Like the four-ringed automaker from Ingolstadt and Bayerische Motoren Werke, the three-pointed star has to sell a lot of examples of a given model to justify its existence. That’s how a publicly traded company works.
Rolls-Royce Motor Cars plays by different rules because the company is wholly owned by the BMW AG. If you take a look at the British automaker’s sales figures, you will also notice how different R-R does business from Mercedes, Audi, BMW, Lincoln, and other luxury brands.
The question is, does the Cullinan need a pickup option in order to bring new customers to the brand? Not quite, no. More than 5,150 cars and SUVs were delivered in 2019, a historical performance for the Goodwood-based outfit.
Chief exec Torsten Muller-Otvos made it crystal clear that the Cullinan has contributed a lot to this sales figure, but “we are conscious of our key promise to our customers.” To the point, the head honcho wants to keep Rolls-Royce “rare and exclusive,” and this wording implies a production cap in the near future.
As such, the Cullinan luxury truck imagined by pixel artist Kleber Silva will remain just that – a rendering. The average age of a Rolls-Royce owner may be 40-ish years old according to Torsten, but a super-plush workhorse is definitely out of the question even for a younger demographic. Despite a whole load of one-offs, not even BMW could make a case for a truck.
On that note, care to guess why Audi didn't come up with a pickup even though VW has one in the guise of the Amarok? The answer is obvious.
Previewed with great pomp and circumstance, the W470 raised a few eyebrows when the three-pointed star revealed the production model. The Nissan Navara-like plastic in the cabin is one thing, but the truck had nothing to do with Mercedes-Benz other than a six-cylinder turbo diesel which is 15 years old this year.
A little over 15,000 units were sold in the entire world in 2019, forcing Merc to pull the plug on the X-Class. Like the four-ringed automaker from Ingolstadt and Bayerische Motoren Werke, the three-pointed star has to sell a lot of examples of a given model to justify its existence. That’s how a publicly traded company works.
Rolls-Royce Motor Cars plays by different rules because the company is wholly owned by the BMW AG. If you take a look at the British automaker’s sales figures, you will also notice how different R-R does business from Mercedes, Audi, BMW, Lincoln, and other luxury brands.
The question is, does the Cullinan need a pickup option in order to bring new customers to the brand? Not quite, no. More than 5,150 cars and SUVs were delivered in 2019, a historical performance for the Goodwood-based outfit.
Chief exec Torsten Muller-Otvos made it crystal clear that the Cullinan has contributed a lot to this sales figure, but “we are conscious of our key promise to our customers.” To the point, the head honcho wants to keep Rolls-Royce “rare and exclusive,” and this wording implies a production cap in the near future.
As such, the Cullinan luxury truck imagined by pixel artist Kleber Silva will remain just that – a rendering. The average age of a Rolls-Royce owner may be 40-ish years old according to Torsten, but a super-plush workhorse is definitely out of the question even for a younger demographic. Despite a whole load of one-offs, not even BMW could make a case for a truck.
On that note, care to guess why Audi didn't come up with a pickup even though VW has one in the guise of the Amarok? The answer is obvious.
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