Mercedes is known for the Sprinter commercial van in the United States. It is the fifth most popular van in sales and growing fast. However, the company has a large variety of vans for sale in other markets. TFLtruck spied this 2016 Mercedes-Benz Vito prototype testing at high elevation of Colorado and parked on a mountain top.
Mercedes full line of vans includes: the Citan, Viano, Vito, V-Class, and Sprinter. The commercial van and people-mover market is heating up in United States, and it’s possible that Mercedes wants to get into the action. Many smaller commercial vans are arriving on the scene: Chevy City Express, Ford Transit Connect, Nissan NV200, and Ram ProMaster City.
This Vito prototype is in between the small and full-size commercial vans. Perhaps, this Mercedes is counting on this as a unique offering in the market?
The Vito has many configurations and powertrain options. It can even be configured as front or rear wheel drive. All-wheel-drive is possible in left-hand drive configuration. This prototype is a rear-wheel drive variety and has a manual transmission.
Front drive models come with a small 1.6L turbo-diesel four-cylinder with either 88 or 114 horsepower levels. The rear drive can be had with the 2.15L turbo-diesel four-cylinder with 136, 163, and 190 horsepower choices. If this van did come over to United States, then the higher power rear-wheel drive is more likely. TFLtruck also saw this van towing a trailer, so it’s running a comprehensive set of tests.
The Vito also has a range of safety technologies built in, including: Adaptive ESP, Attention assist, Crosswind assist, and Active Parking assist.
Andre Smirnov is a life-long automotive enthusiast, writer, reporter, and software engineer. He has been a contributor at TFL since 2011.
