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By Jonathan Crouch

Introductionword count: 73

Solid as a rock, tougher than granite and seemingly impervious to the sands of time, there's nothing quite like a Mercedes G-Class. It remains politically incorrect and hugely expensive but it's now a much more credible alternative to less unique super-luxury large SUVs, thanks to modern-era engineering adopted in a way that hasn't diluted this Gelandewagen's unique character. Here, we look at early versions of the second generation W463A design launched in 2018.

Modelsword count: 8

5dr SUV (3.0 V6 diesel, 5.5 V8 petrol)

Historyword count: 493

You know the real thing when you see it and, when it comes to supremely capable large SUVs, this is the real thing, the Mercedes G-Class. In this second generation 'W463A' guise, introduced in 2018, virtually everything changed: the body, the suspension, the steering, the engines - all of it was new. Even the classic ladder-framed chassis was updated. But at the same time, almost nothing about the character of this 'W463'-series model was different. And the result was as unique as this car always has been. The 'G' stands for 'Gelandewagen', usually shortened to 'G-Wagen', the name roughly translating as 'go anywhere car', 'go anywhere' in this case meaning just about any inhospitable part of the globe you can think of, from the Sahara desert to the Siberian Arctic. Ordinary luxury SUV buyers, in other words, need not apply. And yet they do. Over forty years after it was originally launched for Cold War military use as well as civilian transport, the G-Class these days enjoys an ever-more popular fresh lease of life as a fashion icon you're as likely to find on the Kings Road as in the Kalahari. This hand-built off-roader is the longest serving passenger car that Mercedes-Benz has ever made, the only one without a production end date and a track record that includes everything from the transportation of two Popes to an outright win in the gruelling Paris-Dakar Rally. The G-Wagen story dates back to 1972 and a suggestion by Shah of Iran (at the time a significant Mercedes shareholder) that the company should create a military 4x4. This was satisfied by a collaborative design created by Daimler-Benz and Steyr-Daimler-Puch, now Magna-Steyr, who've assembled the Gelandewagen near the Austrian city of Graz ever since. Civilian-orientated '460' and '461' series models were produced from 1979, before the original version of this more civilised '463'-series design was first launched in 1990. The three following decades saw this car successfully overcome any obstacle it encountered - including obsolescence. Turn-of-the-century plans to kill it off in favour of more modern luxury SUV designs like the modern-era Mercedes GLS model were wisely shelved and today, the G-Wagen is more popular than it's ever been. It remains the forefather of all SUVs to wear the Three-Pointed Star, which is why all Mercedes off road models feature an upper-case G in their name. From the launch of this 'W463A' design, buyers could choose between a straight-six G 350d diesel variant or a wildly powerful G 63 AMG twin turbo petrol V8 model. Either way, you get the luxury of a Range Rover with the wilderness capability of a Land Rover Defender. The street presence of a supercar with the sense of a large SUV. The 'W463A' design was updated in late 2020 with the G350d diesel replaced by a more powerful G400d variant, plus there was a wider range of trim levels. It's the earlier 2018-2020-era G-Class models though, that we look at here.

What You Getword count: 394

By anyone's reckoning, this is an unlikely fashion accessory. Yet despite a setsquare shape with the aerodynamic qualities of a semi-detached house, that's exactly what this G-Class has become. This modern-era version is still known by brand loyalists as a 'W463 series' model, but it's very different to earlier Gelandewagens that shared that classic designation, the completely redesigned body for this post-2018-era version being 53mm longer, 64 wider and 15mm taller than before and built of different grades of steel, with aluminium adopted for the wings, the bonnet and the doors. As ever though, it was still hand-crafted for Mercedes by Magna-Steyr in Graz, Austria, each G taking over 140 hours to produce. So what's it like at the wheel? Well you'd certainly know you were in a new-era G-Wagen here, primarily because this modern model features the widescreen cockpit display we'd previously seen in all of Mercedes more conventional large models, with a 12.3-inch central COMAND infotainment screen bonded seamlessly to a digital instrument display of the same size. A more characteristic G-Wagen feature is the huge great old fashioned dash-mounted grab handle. Plus to build on the exterior theme, there are little square dash-top speakers to reference the front indicators. And circular vents to replicate the shape of the headlights. Build quality was vastly improved and the interior was a lot more spacious than a G-Wagen ever had been. As before, the driving position is satisfyingly high and commanding and there's virtually no distance at all from the dash to the upright windscreen, all of which is very much a part of the old-school feel. Sitting in the back, you'd never know you were in an SUV that was nearly 5-metres long. But this 'W463A' model was vastly more passenger-friendly than its predecessor, with plentiful headroom and the redesigned platform freeing up a massive 150mm more legroom. Forget any thoughts of being able to have fold-out third row seating. You'd need much greater interior space efficiency than this car can provide in order to be able to accommodate that. As it is, there's just about enough space in the cargo area for a half-reasonably-sized boot. Because of the tailgate-mounted spare wheel, you've to access it via an inconvenient side-hinged arrangement, which is particular awkward for markets like ours that drive on the left. Once everything's opened up, you'll find 667-litres of space.

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