What's the news?
So, you've bought yourself a Brabus Unimog (1,120Nm of torque, find out more here) but you find yourself thinking; 'Hmmm. I love my Unimog, but I really could do with something a bit more practical for shopping trips and city-centre parking.'
Well your prayers, and indeed ours, have been answered. Not for the first time, they've been answered by Brabus, the legendary Mercedes tuners and tweakers, whose engineers have been allowed out of their straight-jackets for long enough to create this - the Brabus X-Class pickup.
Based on, quel suprise, the Mercedes-Benz X-Class pickup, the Brabus version comes with the expected meaner looks and amped-up performance.
If we're honest, it's not quite the insanity that we'd normally expect from Brabus. There's no quad-turbo V12 stuffed into the engine bay (although, hey, the week is yet young...) but there has been a mild increase in power for the Nissan-sourced 2.3-litre turbo diesel four-cylinder X250d engine. That power comes from the D4 PowerXtra performance upgrade and is up by 21hp to 211hp and torque is boosted by a very useful 60Nm to 510Nm, available from just 1,500rpm.
Brabus claims that the X-Class will now accelerate from 0-100km/h in 11.5 seconds, which is only 0.3 seconds of an improvement on standard. Brabus shrugs this off, saying that the increased torque is more important for everyday driving and pulling power. The tuning is essentially done by plug-and-play electronics, which Brabus says can be done at any approved Mercedes-Benz dealer in less than an hour. If all of that sounds a touch underwhelming, fret not; Brabus has said that it's already working on a tuning package for the V6-engined X350d. That should be a touch more explosive...
On the outside, the X-Class gets 20-inch Monoblock alloy wheels, with 285/45 tyres (from Continental, Pirelli, or Yokohama) all-round. Brabus says that the bodykit is "a designer suit with sporty-elegant styling" and includes a honeycomb grille, a three-piece under-bumper protection panel, and new integrated LED side-lights for the load bay.
There's also an LED roof-mounted light bar (for better vision when high-speed off-roading at night, we guess?) and a Brabus sports exhaust slung out the back.