While Mercedes-Benz refuses to do an AMG-variant of the X-Class pickup, legendary German tuner Brabus has picked up the baton, and has decided to create their interpretation of a sportier X-Class.
The result is a more in-your-face X-Class with bigger wheels, more grunt, and more leather. What began as a regular X250d, has been transformed with their ‘D4 PowerXtra performance upgrade’. Immediately noticeable are the 20-inch Monoblock X Brabus wheels, LED strips, quad pipes out the back, and meatier front bumper. The interior gets subtle Brabus touches like custom pedals and door strips, as well as customized leather in place of Artico.
The motor is still the Nissan-sourced 2.3-litre bi-turbo diesel, but Brabus managed to liberate some extra horses through an ECU retune, which sees power increase from 140kw to 155kw. The real torque-ing point is not so much the increase in torque from 450nm to 510nm, but more so the wider torque band that is now available. 0-100kph has been improved by 0.3 seconds to 11.5 seconds – however, this is a 2.2 ton pickup, so expect to see the difference in performance in tractability rather than straight line acceleration.
Brabus is currently working on a performance upgrade kit for the Mercedes-Benz-powered 190kw X350d V6 – and those results should be very impressive.
Even though the X-Class has just been launched locally, there are rumours of the Brabus X-Class becoming available in South Africa, but stay tuned for more information.
