- What's up guys, fire up your sad reacts.
Because today we're talking about a tragedy.
The most tragically misused car in the history of cars.
The Mercedes G-Wagon.
This thing is legit one of the most rugged,
capable froader's ever to roll across this muddy fat earth,
yet most people know it
as nothing more than an angular status symbol
for rich people.
Using a car designed to endure brutal off-road punishment
for nothing rowdier than a Starbucks run at rush hour
is like wearing a Rambo outfit on a Starbucks run
during rush hour.
So how did the car designed for sheer military functionality
become a status for fancy folk?
What makes it such a beast off road?
And will it carry the torch
of boxy 80s styling into the 22nd century?
We'll ask what this video is about.
Let's get you up to speed on the Mercedes G-Wagon.
(joyful music)
- Big thanks to K&N for sponsoring today's video.
You know, car folks like us,
well, we follow the same four seasons
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You got spring,
summer,
fall and garage.
And you know it's garage season
when it's too cold to be outside.
I mean, look at that authentic natural Los Angeles snow.
There's no better time to be here in the garage
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Now when you think about it,
K&N is really the reason for the garage season.
(slurping)
Wow, it's really coming down now.
It reminds me of those long Ohio garage seasons
from my youth.
Sledding on snow days,
making hot cocoa,
helping dad install K&N parts on his project car.
You know dad always said, "K&N products,
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Whoa, Jake, where's my snow?
- We're out of snow.
I got ice though.
I can give you hail.
- Okay.
- I gotta clean that up.
- The gland of Oregon,
which translates to cross country vehicle
first spun up in the early 1970s.
The Shah of Iran,
who was also a Mercedes shareholder.
Suggested the company developed a military style off-roader
to compete with Toyotas Land Cruiser,
and Jeeps Jeep.
Mercedes took note of the Shahs suggestion
and bigger note of the fact that he ordered 20,000 of them
for the Iranian army,
and began development of the G-Wagon in 1972.
To produce their truck Mercedes partnered
with an Austrian parts builder called Steyr-Daimler-Puch,
which was co-founded a long time ago
by the son of the guy who built the first Mercedes,
Gottlieb Daimler.
Mercedes engineers were in charge of designing
and testing the G-Wagon,
while Steyr-Daimler-Puch were entrusted
with the final assembly of the vehicles.
This deal gave each company a 50% stake in the car,
and is also the reason why it was originally sold
as the Puch G in Eastern Europe.
We included that because
Puch G sounds like a bulimic cartoon
German shepherd that raps.
Here's a cool weird factoid about this car
that makes a lot of sense.
The first design model of the G-Wagon was made out of wood,
not clay, wood.
Which is easy 'cause it's shaped like a fricking dresser.
Mercedes engineers started testing
the G-Wagon prototypes in 1975.
First in coalfields near Cologne, Germany,
where they ran it over boulders and sand,
through water and mud,
up steep inclines
and down craggy descends,
craggy's one of my favorite adjectives.
The test crew discovered the G-Wagon
had the mind shattering ability
to climb slopes as steep as 45 degrees.
Now let me break that down for those of you
who slept through geometry.
90 degrees is straight up,
all right.
So 45 degrees
is half straight up,
that's half vertical.
Most black-diamond ski runs top out at about 35 degrees.
So, drive a car up that
plus 10 clicks.
Mercedes engineers also perform corrosion testing,
in the dangerous Chott el Djerid salt flats
of the Sahara Desert,
extreme cold and ice testing,
in the Arctic circle
and log thousands of kilometers off-road
in the Austrian Alps.
The engineers even tested backing down
the three mile driveway of John Mayer's ranch in Montana.
All the world's most extreme conditions.
The designer's focus then turn to ensuring the G-Wagon
would also offer impressive handling
and drivability on the road.
Which many experts of the time thought
was virtually impossible for a vehicle like this.
Let me explain,
Mercedes chose to make the G-Wagon a body on frame truck,
reflecting its intended heavy duty use,
this made it more durable
than a typical uni body vehicle but,
body on frame trucks, especially those with solid axles
usually ride like heck.
So Mercedes engineers intensely fine tuned the suspension
to keep the ride as smooth as possible
and as a result,
the G-Wagon,
it rides like a truck,
but the Mercedes version of a truck.
Steyr-Daimler-Puch built an entirely new production facility
in Graz, Austria, specifically to assemble G-Wagons by hand,
and the production
finally began in 1979.
Unfortunately, this was too late for the Shah of Iran
who was deposed in February, 1979
and never got his 20,000 Benz's.
You win Shah, you lose Shah.
The G-Wagon went on sale to the public
as the W460 in September 1979,
in three different body styles.
You got your two door convertible,
your two door wagon,
and your four door wagon.
It quickly became known as one of the most rugged SUV's
on the market,
able to withstand just about any driving conditions,
thanks to its robust four wheel drive system
that utilized three locking differentials
and heavy duty,
super articulate,
solid axles front and rear.
Without the Iranian Shah around to corner the market,
the Argentine army was the first military
to enlist the G-Wagon.
Around the same time
the car made headlines,
when the Vatican ordered a specially made model
with a plastic top to serve as the Pope mobile
for John Paul the second's first visit to Germany.
The Pope was the first celeb to flex the G-Wagon.
Which kinda makes sense when you ponder
why these rugged off-roaders became iced out status symbols.
The Pope has more drip than a diamond faucet.
Mercedes made the first major refinements
to the G-Wagon in 1981,
making the trucks available with amenities like
air conditioning,
and automatic transmission,
but air conditions and Pope filled
still did not mean luxurious.
And we're still a long way from finding a G-Wagon
parked in Nick Cannon's Drumline theme garage.
I've been there,
it's really cool.
In 1983, Jacky Ickx and Claude Brasseur
two of the best named gentlemen in history
won the Paris Dakar rally in a G-Wagon.
They didn't just win their class
in the toughest most grueling rally race on the planet.
They won it outright, first.
Their 280G survived a sand storm
that took out 40 other competitors.
In 1988, a dude named Gunther Holtorf,
another great name,
bought a G-Wagon with the intention
of driving around Africa for 18 months,
instead, he drove it 557,000 miles
through 215 countries over the next 26 years.
And it never required
any major repairs.
This car,
I would call this car a tank,
but I don't think a tank could do that.
So there's a seed of irony in the G-Wagon's
eventual popularity in the American luxury market.
Mercedes never officially exported the G-Wagon
to the United States specifically
because it didn't fit the brand's
luxurious reputation in America.
Another issue was that the W460 G-Wagon
was underpowered compared to the popular American SUV's
of the day,
despite its tough exterior
and excellent off-road performance.
The truck's most common engine
put out less than a hundred horsepower.
That's ridiculous 'cause it,
you can literally register it as a commercial vehicle
because it's so fricking heavy.
Now, despite these rather large speed bumps,
G-Wagon started appearing on the gray market in the US.
This meant small American companies would import them,
modify them to meet American safety and emission standards,
and then sell them at a heavy markup.
The combination of a high price tag,
plus extreme rarity
made the G-Wagon an instant status symbol
for the American upper crust.
And we all know that the upper crust
is the best part of the crust.
It's right by the edge of the pan.
It's a little caramelized,
it's a little brown,
it's real fricking crispy.
Hm-mm I might have a pot pie after this.
G-Wagon still weren't luxurious but now
they were in demand.
So, when Gray-Market Imports were outlawed by the 1987
Vehicle Motor Safety Compliance Act,
which I hate that,
I hate that act,
a small company in New Mexico called
Europa International decided
to undergo the long and costly process of federalizing
the G for the US market.
This is very similar to what Motorex did
with the R34 skyline in the early two thousands.
And if they wouldn't have been shady,
then maybe we could see as many skylines on the road now,
as we see G-Wagons.
Maybe Nissan would have started importing them, themselves.
The process took five years,
but in 1993,
Europa started selling G-Wagons,
now, as the car's exclusive US importer and distributor.
You could say,
they cornered the market
on the car that's all corners.
(crickets chirping)
Mercedes noticed that luxury shoppers
were willing to pay a lot
for barely pimped out G-Wagons,
for reasons that didn't really make sense but,
if it meant more money,
why not lean into it.
So in 1990, they retired the W460,
and replaced it with two new
heavily upgraded models.
The W461 directly replaced the W460.
Which was still popular with militaries,
governments and NGOs,
but the W463
was finally an officially luxurious luxury wagon for luxury.
How much luxury, you ask?
I'm talking Burl Wood trim luxury.
This truck was so classy
that in 1994 Mercedes officially renamed it,
the G Class.
Now despite me just saying rich America's appetite
for barely legal G-Wagons motivated the factories move
toward luxury.
Mercedes still wasn't selling these cars
in the US themselves.
So in 1998, Europa received small volume manufacturer status
for the G-Wagon and reached a deal with Mercedes
to have some cars prebuilt to meet US standards
at this point,
Europa was responsible for selling
over 10% of G-Wagons worldwide.
In fact, Europa
got so successful at moving vehicles
that Mercedes decided to put them out of business
by buying back US distribution rights,
and making the car an official part of the American life.
The G Class officially debuted in the US in 2001,
22 years and multiple Pope mobiles
after it came out in Europe.
The American G500,
was souped-up with a 292 horsepower, five liter V8,
to compete with the Escalades and Range Rovers in its class
and in case that wasn't enough,
Mercedes also brought over the AMG Tune G55,
toting at 350 (indistinct),
5.5 liter V8.
This thing had side exit exhaust
and did zero to 60 in about seven seconds.
Which is great
for a car that weighs as much as a literal shed.
Like it weighs as much as a shed.
The G55 AMG sold more than any other G-Wagon variant
in the US for years,
but it wasn't enough for the nitrous saddle brains
of America's craziest orthodontists.
So in 2005, AMG threw a supercharger at the G55,
up in the (indistinct) number
to a really nice 469,
and dropping that zero to 60 time to 5.6 seconds.
That's like almost as fast as a Porsche 911
at the time.
Also 469,
is a really funny combination of 420 and 69.
Which we've all agreed
are the funniest numbers.
The G55 AMG established the G-Wagon
as one of the premier luxury vehicles
on the North American market.
So, like any smart business would do
Mercedes tried to ax it.
In 2005, the Benz boys announced plans
to stop selling the G-Wagon in the US
just four years after its introduction.
Why?
Well, they wanted to replace it with the larger,
more pavement oriented,
less angular GL Class SUV.
500 final units of the G500 and G55 AMG were built
and shipped to the United States.
And that was that until,
the US Marine Corps ordered 157,
interim fast attack vehicles based on the G Class
for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
There's a lot of weird back and forth between military
and wealthy civilian influence in this story
which is confusing,
because usually they're one in the same.
I mean, everyone knows that the cruise missile
is named after Tom Cruise.
Just like the shoes are named after Michael Jordan.
Thanks to the Marines,
Mercedes never stopped making the G class.
And thank God because I want one.
In 2013 after too much time hovering nitrous oxide,
Mercedes dropped a six wheel G-Wagon because,
I don't know, why not.
The G63 AMG six by six,
a six wheel drive,
luxury sport utility truck
with a twin turbo V8 was derived from a one-off development
for the Australian army.
But that was nothing compared to
the 2018 Mercedes-Maybach G650 Landaulet
at least as far as price goes.
This extended wheelbase,
half convertible G unit cost a cool $800,000
making it the world's most expensive SUV.
The first one in North America was bought by none other
than certified Benz lover boy, Drake.
If you say you don't love Drake,
you're a liar.
But for every ultra luxo G unit hard parking in the Hills
there are 20 more stripped down,
hardcore G-Wagons staying true to their roots.
And at this point in the video you might be wondering,
did Mercedes ever redesign the G-Wagon?
Every single one of these things from the W460 of 1979,
to the Maybach Laundromat of 2018,
they'll look like the same.
That's nearly four decades without a redesign.
What is this, a Nissan video?
Who am I?
Nolan?
Well, technically Mercedes debuted a second generation
of the G Class at the 2018
North American International Auto Show but,
compare this one to this one.
But in Mercedes defense,
like why mess with an icon.
Now just a few months ago Mercedes previewed
a fully electric G Class concept called the EQG.
It looks like every other G-Wagon for the most part,
but this one is powered by four independent electric motors.
Mercedes confirmed a production version of the EVG Wagon
for 2024 ensuring
that the next generation of rappers
will be able to flex
just like my best friend Dre.
Today the G Class is rightfully viewed
as one of the vehicles that defines Mercedes-Benz.
Is nothing short of an icon.
It's been in production for 42 years straight.
And even though it's often associated with
the real housewives of every rich suburb,
the G-Wagon is legitimately one of the coolest
and most capable vehicles ever.
I want one.
Not many cars,
can be at home in Beverly Hills,
and the North Pole.
Long live you G.
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