By now, the motoring world is very familiar with the high-performance nomenclature of Mercedes-Benz. Take the number 63, put a letter (or letters) in front of it, and you have something special. And for just one year – 2007 to be specific – that included the R 63. Wait, what?
The Mercedes-Benz R-Class lived a relatively short life, unveiled as a multi-purpose vehicle (MPV) in 2005 and marketed as definitely not a minivan for 12 years. Its swoopy shape and available seven-passenger seating certainly fit within the minivan world, but standard rear doors in place of sliders set it apart from the Honda Odysseys and Toyota Siennas of the day. Some might call it a technicality, or you could call the R-Class an early example of the crossover. Whatever you call it, sales were terrifically underwhelming and as such, it was dropped from North America in 2012 and disappeared globally in 2017.
