That is so wrong on so many levels. I love it.

Cute little Goggomobil, with an enormous prewar Soviet radial engine.

There’s certainly more legroom in the back - although who gets chauffeured in a 6-year-old car?

Well, yes and no; my S and CL both had more wood than shown in that second photo (maybe I should post another photo of my own, but my photography’s terrible). There may be more legroom in the back, but from the driving seat, the Maybach has the same look & feel as a W220 with all the nice options. I considered buying…

“It’s as bespoke as it comes.”

Terrible gearbox (it took me a couple of days to find third gear) with ratios fit for a truck rather than a van. Cabin seems to be made with the cheapest, nastiest things they could find at the bottom of the (Fiat?) parts bin. Suspension reacted strangely to cambers & ruts; didn’t give any confidence at all. Next time…

Totally. Those vans are cheap to buy and cheap to work on. And mostly fun to hoon (unless you get an Iveco).

Sniffpetrol got it right:

Business agrees with customer that it can deliver something awesome for a low price. Business then realises that it can’t deliver to that spec on that budget, so it asks customer for more money, whilst continuing to pour resources into the project. Customer rejects price creep. Business fails.

No love for the MAN TGA?

There are a lot of variables.

The proper English word for that would be a "dropside". Often built up by a third party from an OEM chassis-cab 2wd van/truck, although a couple of OEMs (including Mercedes) do offer their own dropsides.

What's the unit cost? 10 times the cost of a 5-year-old Hilux? 100 times?

Goodyear?

Mercedes' press briefing mentioned "payload of about one metric ton" as the standard for a successful pickup.

ALL STIG, ALL THE TIME.

Just looking at it makes me want to build a W220 pickup.

Mercedes bakkies were built in South Africa, even earlier.

YES. Make it happen again. Please make it happen again.