A Monument to Hedonism
Mercedes-AMG G 63
You don’t have to like this car. Even in a world without climate change, Fridays for Future, and a 1.5 degree commitment, there’d be a thousand reasons against this car: it’s much too big, much too loud and more expensive than some houses in the German countryside …
Then again, the Mercedes-AMG G 63 is a car that is beyond any questions of reason. Why does the G-Rex still exist in 2022? Because it can. And it’s doing better than ever before: Record sales figures, years-long delivery times, order books closed indeterminately. If you want to buy a new G as a demonstrator car, you have to put up with markups of tens of thousands of euros. Even used cars, after two years and thirty, forty thousand kilometres are well above their as-new price. What exactly is it then, that makes the G Wagon, as the Americans still call it, such a desirable car?
Die deutschsprachige Version dieses Textes befindet sich hier.
The G is the ultimate status symbol. Favourite toy of rap artists and main act in their music videos. Beverly Hills cruiser for actors and actresses and record producers. Car of choice for footballers and vulgar celebrities like the members of the Kardashian/Jenner family. When you see this vehicle, you just know that it costs an obscene amount of money. And even if you don’t know, you can definitely guess that it does. A quarter of a million euros on the register is no problem at all, and with the G 63 4×4² that will soon be available, that price tag will easily start with a 3. Even as a diesel, the G will never be under six figures.
Why does the G-Rex still exist in 2022? Because it can. And it’s doing better than ever before.
You do get a lot for your money though. There is probably no other car from the brand with the three-pointed star that offers such a wide range of options for individualisation. The choice of paint colours is enormous and between G manufaktur desert sand non-metallic and G manufaktur san josé orange magno impressively diverse. Then again you’ll have to pay an extra seven and a half grand for the matte green on our car, called green hell magno. Five thousand euros buys you 22 inch forged aluminium wheels in that famous AMG mono block design of the 90s. If you then add the Superior Line interior, that with the G 63 only costs about eight thousand euros instead of eighteen thousand, you’ll have paid Mercedes-Benz the price of a new Volkswagen Golf just for the paint, upholstery and alloy wheels. Wow. Should you so desire, you can theoretically spec the car in a solid red paint with blue seats, and then (at least on the non-AMG versions) equip the ensemble with some off-road extras like all-terrain tyres and grilles for your lights. There's a lot you can do with the G-Class.
And the G-Class can do a lot, too. Even if most people will probably never take their investment off-roading; with substantial ground clearance, all-wheel drive, three locking differentials and — regardless of which engine — massive power, there are hardly any roads a G-Class cannot conquer. Even with standard tyres, just as photographer @razkrog keeps documenting on his Instagram account. This shouldn’t come as a surprise as that was the idea when the car was originally developed a good 40 years ago. No need to mention that the car, that’s constantly put to the test on the Schöckl mountain in Austria — world famous because of Mercedes-Benz marketing — has served in the military worldwide.
Substantial ground clearance, all-wheel drive, three locking differentials and massive power: there are hardly any roads a G-Class cannot conquer.
I did not take the G 63 off-road, however. At seven and a half thousand euros for the paint, scratches were a risk I was not willing to take. And anyways, with the four-litre V8 and 585 hp, this is a car that belongs on paved roads. And this, at last, is where you do get an answer to the question of this car’s purpose: as soon as you press the start button and the eight-cylinder engine roars out of the four arm-thick exhaust pipes mounted in front of the rear tyres, it's clear that the G 63 is a monument to hedonism. This is all about having fun. (The cold start at six in the morning that wakes up all neighbours is part of my own personal hedonism, by the way.)
It’s on the road where, at last, you do get an answer to the question of this car’s purpose: the G 63 is a monument to hedonism.
Adding to the fun is the fact that this automobile breaks all rules of physics. Something so big, so square should not be able to move so quickly. If you feel like time is passing faster and faster, it’s probably because there are more and more G-Classes in the world that speed up Earth’s rotation with their torque of up to 850 N m and their fat 295 tyres. I’m convinced that since AMG started fiddling with the G-Class, days only last 23 hours. On the autobahn, every single millimetre that you press down on the accelerator translates into incredible thrust. The fact that already at 120 kph the wind tries to find a way around the completely flat windscreen so incredibly loudly does not bother you at all, because the characteristic sound of the AMG Biturbo V8 is all your hearing focuses on at that moment. What an outstanding piece of machinery the G 63 is!
If you feel like time is passing faster and faster, it’s probably because there are more and more G-Classes in the world that speed up Earth’s rotation with their torque of up to 850 Nm and their fat 295 tyres. I’m convinced that since AMG started fiddling with the G-Class, days only last 23 hours.
Driving it, you begin to understand that green hell mango might not be the prettiest colour for this car, but perhaps one of the most fitting ones: Everyone is looking at you anyway, so why not take things up a notch with the colour?
And whenever you hear the sound of that V8 and feel the unreal acceleration, combined with the feeling that at any time you could easily run over the peasants in their boring 5 series or E-Classes, you forget that even a quarter of a million euros won’t buy you a perfect car. The first few times you drive a G-Class are terrifying because, despite all the cameras, you just can’t see these extra-wide fenders or judge how much the spare wheel on the back door sticks out toward the rear. And just why Mercedes-Benz still use the by now rather old-fashioned COMAND system on the G-Class instead of the really rather good MBUX infotainment system, isn’t quite clear to me either.
Taking the G 63 out for a ride at least made me finally understand why people are willing to either wait for years for the car they ordered or pay exorbitant markups on the list price: This automobile satisfies you on so many levels, from the wonderfully finished interior and the characteristic click the doors make when you shut them, to the insane driving experience. At least I no longer question the purpose of this car. But I do question whether there is actually a place in this world for so much colossal hedonism.
At least I no longer question the purpose of this car. But I do question whether there is actually a place in this world for so much colossal hedonism.
Mercedes-AMG G 63 shot for KBM Motorfahrzeuge GmbH & Co. KG.
[Mercedes-AMG G 63 | Kraftstoffverbrauch kombiniert: 16,0 l/100 km | CO2-Emissionen kombiniert: 363 g/km | mb4.me/DAT-Leitfaden | mb4.me/WLTP]
October 2022