The G 63 isn’t a car that believes in giving you a choice. To me, it’s set beyond the conventional point of having a problem with something like it. Think of it as what happens after you’ve met a hero you were strongly advised against. Its flaws are raw and out in the open — and so is its nonchalance — and it leaves it up to you to figure out the terms of your co-existence. It is, perhaps, the most irreverent car in all of history.
It wasn’t always meant to be this way, you know? Indeed, the G has its roots firmly anchored in the early ’70s, having emerged from a less sinister and rather idealistic vision. It’s rumoured that the G-Wagen was commissioned by Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah Of Iran, who wished for Mercedes-Benz to lend its typical brilliance to a military grade off-road vehicle. It was at his alleged insistence that 20,000 units of the G-Wagen were to be produced. The Shah had his way with seeing his insistences being delivered on, just as he had a few years ago, when he — to rather unpleasant effect — sent a dog as a gift to the king of Jordan. Mercedes-Benz set about making this all-new car at an all-new factory in Graz, Austria, but, in 1979, when the G-Wagen was finally produced, the 2500-year old monarchy of Iran was overthrown.
Mercedes, then, had to go looking for new buyers for it, who weren’t hard to come by at all. Soon, military and police outfits from around the world, Argentina and Germany being among the earliest, scooped it up. Today, 48 countries have the G-Wagen reporting for duty, its roles varying from combat to personnel transportation and even as a ceremonial vehicle.
Its crossover to becoming a Los Angeles icon, though, began only decades after it came into being. Mercedes had begun experimenting with powertrains early on in the G’s lifecycle, with a V8 making its way into its engine bay as early as in 1993. That car was the 500 GE V8, showcased at the Geneva Motor Show, of which only 446 examples were produced. Mercedes’s ambition for the 500 GE may have far exceeded the demand for it, but the seeds of an unforeseen cult surely had been sown. It was only after the turn of the new millennium that roadgoing versions of the G had really caught on.
Hotel heiress and LA ‘royalty’ Paris Hilton famously borrowed one — a G 55, if the Internet is to be believed — from the firm’s American arm and then disappeared with it for days until the car was finally recovered. Rap artists bought one, presumably to commute to work in, and so did every Hollywood A-lister. Russian elites, engaged undoubtedly in professions of profound nobility, bought all the black ones Mercedes produced, while all the white ones were hoarded by the Arabs.
For a passing moment in my early twenties, I donned a suit to earn a living in Dubai, entrusted, questionably, with handling the PR affairs of Aston Martin for the Middle East, parts of north Africa and India. I charmed my way through the small pool of motoring journalists quickly enough and yet, the glowing reviews my colleagues on the other side of the fence churned out didn’t matter. Ultimately, everyone in the UAE only ever wanted to own a G with an AMG badge. It helped that Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai, drove one himself. The ‘Dubai 1’ registration plate on his surprisingly unarmoured G 63 was the most recognised feature of the emirate aside from the Burj Al Arab.
In India, the G 55 found early adopters in political heirs and Bollywood stars, and its popularity only shot up with the arrival of the G 63. Its ‘conservative’ lines bore no effect on its appeal as an extraordinary machine and, to this day, it turns every available head quite impossibly on its axis. I discovered this as I drove the Rs. 3.6 crore (ex-showroom) G 63 practically everywhere I could, for the two days Mercedes had loaned us the car.
This, the W465, is a new generation of the G-Class, although this isn’t necessarily evident to the naked eye. Still very much riding on a ladder-frame, this generation of the G has traded its anti-roll bars in for hydraulic actuators which, to great effect, minimise body roll and make it handle far better than its older versions, some of which were truly comical in this department. Frankly, I have no idea why Mercedes has gone to these lengths to transform the G’s dynamics because exactly nobody asked for it. You don’t buy a G to straighten corners. You want one because of everything it does in between them.
Of course it has a burbling V8, now a twin-turbo, 4.0-litre unit, and it even boasts a 48-volt mild-hybrid system. As a result of this pairing, with 22 bhp being contributed from electricity alone, it generates 597 bhp in as free-spirited a way as today’s regulations will allow. Mercedes claims it goes from 0 to 100 kph in 4.4 seconds and that it produces 86.6 kgm of torque. As a consequence of this, while the G 63 produces an impressive soundtrack — although audibly subdued as compared to older versions — its drama far exceeds the boundaries of sound. The G 63 is hell bent on fighting physics.
The squat. My God. In Sport+, with everything turned up to its aggressive best, the G 63 feels motorcycle-like in how desperately it wants to wheelie. While we were filming it for a YouTube video (shameless plug, but please do go look it up on our channel), the infotainment screen was set to a mode where you could see individual readouts for the amount of power and torque being deployed — rapidly, of course — and I was amazed to find how much it always had in reserve. This, despite having my right foot dug deep into the footwell. Every tug of the paddle, all the way through the 9-speed automatic gearbox, feels physical. Like a small jolt to your spine, tapering off only in the far reaches of its performance. The G 63 is not something you take lightly.
And yet, behind the garb of its brutalist architecture, it feels so, so forgiving. It allows you a lapse of judgement or two because there’s an electronics suite working overtime somewhere in its innards. There’s a refinement, a linearity to the G 63 of today which it missed, even if not sorely, in previous generations and, amazingly, it still is rich in G flavour. Okay, this ‘evolved’ character may upset purists and, indeed, having briefly driven a G 55 AMG (which came with a 5.4-litre, supercharged V8), I can attest to the fact that the new G 63 feels nowhere as brusque or murderous. Yes, it sounds softer and it’s no longer as unpredictably ‘reactive’ to every input but those are edges, I suppose, it had to smoothen out if it wanted to live on. With the world lobbying to wipe the performance car off the face of the planet, trade-offs are inevitable. It just is what it is.
Don’t, however, attempt to read too much into its prominent centrally-mounted off-road button, along with a stack of three diff lock switches. Or into the ‘Schöckl proved’ emblem it wears on the stem of its B-pillar, hidden neatly behind the driver’s door. Schöckl, you see, is a mountain near Graz, which Mercedes uses as its off-road test track, and it’s at exactly the same elevation as Mahabaleshwar — 4700 feet or thereabout. In any case, you’ll only see this badge when the time comes to fi x a puncture, at which point you may have greater concerns. Such as why, despite having its spare wheel mounted on the tailgate, an iconic design element of the G-Class, it features a space saver. It beats me.
That’s not to say the G 63 isn’t a capable off-roader but to emerge from such an environment incident free, you’ll want conditions so ideal, you might as well keep to a PlayStation. Sure, the G can be credited with winning Mercedes-Benz its only Paris-Dakar rally win, but that happened in 1983, at the hands of Belgian Formula 1 legend Jacky Ickx, who drove a 280 GE. It also helped that the Tenere desert was introduced to the rally for the first time in that event, and that, because of a colossal sandstorm, 40 of the 54 finishers were lost for days, running dangerously low on supplies, until the French military could rescue them. If it helps, the car that finished second was a Lada Niva.
This, the G 63, is a chip off the old block, but it isn’t the old block itself. It’s an evolved, filtered version of an idea that owes its genesis to an era vividly different to the one we live in today. And yet, it’s hilariously irrational in its ways. If you look past its softened edges, the G 63 is a glorious car that cares little for convention. It’s a monster, a fearsome powerhouse that isn’t shy about its character or its gluttony. Yes, it has a drinking problem (just ask our accounts division) and, yes, it will eat up all of your plants, but that’s exactly what will keep it from extinction. Somehow, the G always finds a way to remain irrelevant. It’ll stay, right here. And it won’t give you a choice about it.
