The Birthplace
The Mercedes G-Class is an icon. It has fought wars, scaled mountains, waded rivers, and even taken on racetracks. At first glance, it may look like something frozen in the 1970s, but peel back the skin and you’ll find it as modern as any new Mercedes. To understand this legend better - what makes it tick, what makes it unstoppable - we recently travelled to its birthplace in Graz, Austria.
The G-Class has always been built exclusively by Magna at its Graz plant. Born in 1979, it has since evolved through countless versions, powertrains, and upgrades. Yet one truth has remained constant, besides that squared-off silhouette, its uncanny ability to make the hard look easy.
The Experience Centre
To underline this, Mercedes has created an off-road playground in Graz, an arena where customers, prospects, fans, and journalists can witness the G’s invincibility firsthand. The experience is divided into three realms: Road, Rock, and Forest.
“Road” showcases the AMG G-Class. “Rock” is dedicated to the new electric G. And “Forest” belongs to the classic petrol and diesel versions. As the finale, instructors offer a “taxi ride.” This last bit is not for the faint-hearted.
The Road
I started with the road course, behind the wheel of an AMG G 63. The task: tackle a slalom. Now, the G 63 hides a 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8, delivering just shy of 600bhp and 850Nm of torque. Despite its heft, this block of metal rockets from 0–100kmph in 4.4 seconds. Physics, it seems, is overrated.
Well, almost. When asked to change direction quickly, the G’s weight makes itself known. Gentle, measured steering and throttle inputs are key to threading it cleanly through the cones. Then came the full-bore acceleration runs, mandatory, really, given the goosebump-inducing AMG soundtrack. Finally, hard braking, where the G felt like it might attempt an endo. Such is the violence of its stopping power.
The Rock
From the raw, emotional purity of a high-performance V8, we moved to clean energy: the electric G. If EVs are defined by anything, it’s torque, and the electric G delivers in spades; it makes over 1,000Nm. Power is nearly 600bhp, and despite its three-tonne weight, it still sprints to 100kmph in under five seconds.
It’s no surprise, then, that the electric G is tasked with the steepest gradients here - dirt, rock, and even shotcrete climbs (that concrete-like material used to hold back mountain slopes). We tackled slopes up to 40 degrees. Going up, all we could see was the sky. Coming down, we clung to the steering wheel to avoid tumbling through the windscreen. The G, naturally, made light work of it all. The only struggle came on a rocky climb, and even then, the culprit was worn-out tyres, not the SUV itself.
We wrapped our session with the now-famous G-Turn.
The Forest
Last came the wilderness, or at least a carefully curated version of it. Our tool of choice: the G 450d. This one runs a 3.0-litre straight-six diesel, good for nearly 370bhp and 750Nm. Before rolling out, a voice crackled over the radio: “Engage diff-lock one and two.” One locks the centre differential. Two, the rear. Three, the front. That instruction alone told us we were in for a classic G-Class off-road trial.
First obstacle: the axle-breaker. Here, no four wheels are ever on the ground simultaneously. Plenty of SUVs can manage such courses with brake-lock or mechanical diffs, but Graz has raised the stakes - deeper ruts, harsher articulation demands. With all three diffs locked, the G waltzed through without complaint.
Next came a 35-degree side incline. The number may not impress non-off-roaders, but when you can almost touch the ground out of your side window, 35 feels borderline extreme. Terrifying, even. The G? Unflappable. Me? Sweating in 20-degree weather.
The Taxi Ride
With the driving done, the instructors had one last surprise: taxi laps in the electric G. First, the Rock course, but flat out. What we had crawled through earlier at 5kmph became a roller coaster of accelerations, drops, and drifts.
Then, sideways into the Forest section. Through trees, over gravel, into a water crossing, finishing with a slalom completely sideways and, of course, another G-Turn.
Of everything we experienced, that last G-Turn was the only thing I could replicate with the same finesse - mainly because it’s fully automated. Still, it was the perfect finale. Watching a three-tonne block of metal dance like a ballerina on low-grip surfaces is nothing short of remarkable.
