In the early 1970s, West Germany had a serious problem. The East German secret police was catching their spies, and if the West Germans tried to make a getaway in a car, well, tough luck. The East German tactics were simple; they ran them off the road. The boggy forests of the border that split the country meant that even the fastest German sedans would get stuck. And, game over.
So the West Germans needed a vehicle that could drive at speed on highways and could deal with bogs, race through them. Mercedes-Benz made something called the Unimog, a large, wheeled off-road vehicle that could carry a small platoon. Working with Austrian carmaker Steyr, they developed the G-Wagon, which went into production in 1979.
It was meant to be a limited-production vehicle for special forces and other arms of the military. But 45 years and three generations later, over 6,00,000 of them are on the road, it has been a runaway hit. For a vehicle that costs over €200,000 in some standard trims, that is not a small feat. Across the world, the rich and famous love the Mercedes-Benz G-Wagon. In India, the security details of India’s richest families form convoys around their precious human cargo with this tough Austro-German behemoth. A lot of times, the ‘precious’ individual is often driving it themselves.
When Mercedes-Benz India invited me to visit the G Experience Centre in Graz, Austria, where these vehicles are made, I jumped at the opportunity. And what an experience it was. From taking a 2.57 ton vehicle from 0-100 kilometres per hour in just over four second, which is truly something incomprehensible, and then standing on the brakes to bring it to a standstill from that speed in just 40 metres, which is wild.
But this is an off-road vehicle. Not some soft off-road vehicle, but a fully featured machine. It comes equipped with comfortable massage and ventilated seats, three levels of differential axle locking modes. There’s almost nothing that nature (or spies) can throw at it.
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A steep climb
Here is the funny thing: Mercedes-Benz has invested a lot of its future into electrification. So much so that even the ladder-frame G-Wagon has now been electrified in the G580 EQ. When I drove it on the streets of Delhi, I was slightly unimpressed. It might have looked the part, but it lacked the noise, which I felt was an essential part of this vehicle.
How wrong I was. The electric G-Wagon is in many respects better than its petrol and diesel siblings. We climbed 70-80 per cent inclines, which are 37-42 degrees. Behind the wheel, we were pointed straight toward the clouds; beside us, the hill was at a seemingly impossible angle.
Even the best climbers would find it difficult to ascend or descend on such climbs. The vehicle also leaned impossibly at 35 degrees on its side, and one could reach out of an open window and touch the ground. Remember, this is a 2.5-ton car with a top-heavy centre of gravity. Imagine yourself leaning at 35 degrees.
With this G-Wagon, all you needed to do was play around with the modes—rock mode in our case, and put it into drive. And voila, steep climb or descent, easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy.
The sheer ease of it all was mind-boggling. I’ve done hill climbs and dealt with soft, muddy surfaces before, but that involved a level of skill and hand-eye-foot coordination. Constantly changing gears and looking out for rocks and stones. Sure, there was a patch where rocks and recent rain made the climb tough, but it was just a question of manipulating the steering wheel, nothing else. And because the G-Wagon has an ‘invisible bonnet’, cameras on the front of the car give you a view of what is underneath the vehicle.
But at the end of the day, it was the trainers who showed us the real abilities of the G-Wagon. Remember, the West Germans didn’t just want a ‘go anywhere’ vehicle; they wanted a fast go anywhere vehicle. The inclines that we went up at five-ten kilometers per hour, our expert trainers climbed up at over 40 kilometers per hour. Gravel, stone, or water, they just ploughed through. I have been on many such ‘taxi’ rides with expert drivers, but this was something else. Ordinary vehicles wouldn’t just break their suspension at half the speeds the G-Wagon was doing, let alone be unable to climb the hills. This vehicle is designed to evade spycatchers, and it did everything like a man on fire.
This experience was meant to show that the tough exterior is matched by an ability to perform. Much like the other famous person from Graz, Arnold Schwarzenegger. The G-Wagon experience is open to anyone for around €2500, although it is fully booked out until the end of 2026. But if this seems a bit pricey for you, proper off-road experiences are available from multiple brands in India as well. After all, what is the point of having an off-road car if you don’t get it dirty?
Kushan Mitra is an automotive journalist based in New Delhi. He tweets @kushanmitra. Views are personal.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)