jonathan joseph wrote:They started out solely re-assembling Sprinters here in SC but four years ago expanded the plant and now they are built entirely from scratch here.
Wow, that is very cool. Interesting that they advance the assembly requirement as the sales volume demonstrates high volume vehicle sales to support it. I suspect that assembly costs in SE USA are lower than in Germany. Too bad the Metris sales did not take off. I think the 4 -matic version would have generated additional interest, but maybe not enough compared to the larger vans
I have been very interested in the Metris/V-class as they make a really nice Westfalia conversion in Europe called the Marco Polo. All of the camper components down to the small fasteners are shown in EPC. The current Euro diesel power plant is USA certified and available in the Sprinter, and the vehicle body is also NHTSA certified compliant. That means it would be possible to import a grey market Mercedes V300 Marco Polo Westfalia 4-matic with the help of a willing RI and a dealer in Germany helping to order/build a relatively complicated special order vehicle. That's my fantasy camper, but I have a simple, older, easy to fix Westfalia already.