etruck.com.au

Thanks to Brian Weatherley of the Big Lorry Blog from the UK for publishing these photos of what may be the new Mercedes Benz cab design. They were caught by a sharp witted traveller on the highway in Karlsruhe in Germany who would have noticed the camouflage instantly.

It is not clear whether these photos are of a new Benz or a new MAN truck, but bets would be this is the shape of the successor to the current Actros, a design which is already 14 years old. This is quite old in truck cab terms. The Daimler group are also a truck making giant with vast funds for research and development while the MAN company have been in flux for few years now with uncertainty about their bid for Scania, the takeover by Volkswagen and then a number of scandals around the company’s senior management.

This new cab could be spread far and wide by Daimler if they have conceived it as a global cab design. Obviously this model is the aimed at the European market but it could add just a few panels to become a replacement for the Freightliner Argosy models being built in the US. Simplify the cab a little and it could become an ultra modern replacement for the Fuso Super Great prime mover built in Japan and sold around Asia and Australia.

Pictures of this truck have been appearing periodically in the last year or so, but product development timing would suggest this truck is still quite a long way off. Mercedes Benz will be looking for a new model with the introduction of Euro 6 in 2012. We will have to wait and see!