Cross pollination

While vehicle manufacturers are fiercely competitive as a rule, they are also smart enough to realise that collaborations can and most often do have very real advantages, says Mic van Zyl.

Irecently had the opportunity to take some time out and meet an old acquaintance that I had not seen in far too long. We met at one of those Irish pubs for a late lunch, which would inevitably lead to late afternoon. It was great catching up with my mate and we covered many topics during the course of the afternoon.

At some stage the conversation turned to the new Mercedes Benz X-Class pickup. My mate was adamant that the German manufacturer had made a grave mistake to essentially re-badge a Nissan Navara as a Merc. He seemed quite upset by the fact that Mercedes had the audacity to believe that people would accept this. I should mention that he is a huge Merc fan and owns, amongst others, a CLK 63 AMG Black Series as well as an AMG SLS Black Series.

OUR CONVERSATION did make me reflect on the Merc X-Class the next day and, notwithstanding my mate’s very strong opinion on the matter, I do have a different opinion. While vehicle manufacturers are fiercely competitive as a rule, they are also smart enough to realise that collaborations can and most often do have very real advantages, even for the car buyer who may feel cheated. These collaborations have been happening since the dawn of the automobile itself. Manufacturers used to be able to keep this type of thing a bit of a secret, but with the advent of the internet and social media, nobody’s secret is safe anymore.

There are at least three very good reasons why vehicle manufacturers collaborate on vehicle development. The first would be for cost saving. Vehicle development is a massively expensive exercise. One should always realise that the price of the vehicle is not merely dependant on the cost of manufacturing. The money spent on development, engineering and testing has to be recovered as well. Safety requirements and emission adherence is getting more and more complex as time goes by, pushing development costs up. When two competing manufacturers join forces to develop a new platform, they share these costs. This enables each manufacturer to develop models with smaller production runs which may not have been possible had they gone it alone.

VEHICLE MANUFACTURERS are forced to come to market with new models at a higher rate. Back in the day, vehicle models used to last for a decade or more. Nowadays it is every couple of years. By collaborating, manufacturers cut down on development time. Bear in mind that vehicle manufacturers are also essentially huge engineering firms. By having two teams work in tandem on one platform, development times can be vastly reduced. The third reason is perhaps more interesting, and the Merc X-Class is a case in point. Yes, the X-Class is based on the Nissan D23 Navara. Put these two vehicles next to each other and there are a lot of similarities. Jump into them and drive them back to back and you will start to see the differences though.

Bakkies are one of the only vehicle segments that are showing a robust pattern of growth globally. The most popular vehicles sold in South Africa, Australia, Thailand and the USA are bakkies. Merc quite rightly felt they needed to get into this segment. By approaching Nissan, they could take an already good bakkie platform in the Navara and turn it into something Mercedes. It would take much less effort, time and money than starting with a blank page, and they were dealing with a partner who knows a thing or two about building a good truck.

I believe the Germans put just enough Mercedes into the Nissan platform to warrant the three-pointed star on the nose. Any more and it may have started to be considered a soft option, which is something the VW Amarok sometimes battles with. Time, of course, will tell.

There are at least three very good reasons why vehicle manufacturers collaborate on vehicle development.