Had the opportunity to travel to Graz this past week. Spent a few days on my own prior and then got to participate in the Mercedes Benz G-Wagon at their facilities in Graz, Austria. Spent a full day driving the courses on and off road plus a factory tour over lunch. I've been in several factories and I'm still blown away seeing this one in person and the level of hands on work being done. Only one station (glue install on windshields) is done by robots. The rest of the car is all hand assembled.
As far as the experience on the track and off-road it was truly
Impressive as these things a hella capable off-road and it's something no one uses them for in the states. I don't have a lot of video or photos off-roading as they were very strict about phones out while driving. They had a good 40-50 units on property for driving and each group as you rotated through you were assigned one G wagon to drive solo through all the activities.
4 courses that you spend about 1-1hr 15min driving solo through at the directions of the professional drivers with MB. Give you a G wagon and a radio and multiple times just said don't be dumb. Don't be dumb meant the signage said 50 and he said you know that means "around" 70-80, but probably not 100 on the one lane road track..
"The Rock" - simulated Schockl mountain driving. 60-80% inclines across rock and dirt. Driving up an 80% incline in 4lo over large rocks at full acceleration is a fun ride.
AMG track course with G63s - the new 2025s have a kinetic suspension and they're incredibly balanced at speed. It's shocking how they do not feel top heavy. Slalom course, evasive maneuvers, emergency bracking and track time etc
Forest Course - get to take a G550 off road. Mud, rock, water crossings and 20-35+ gradients. Also got the opportunity to jump one at the end. This was by far my favorite of the 4 driving groups. I also grabbed a European build diesel G wagon for this portion.
G580 - Electric G wagon. This was my first time driving one and I was actually very impressed. I am not an electric guy at all, but this car was bad ass. It was an absolute cheat code driving off road. They let us driving the electrics on the AMG course and the forest course. They're not as balanced at speeds on the AMG course as say a G63 but they're still solid. The new G turn feature would actually be very useful off road and didn't seem near as a gimmick once you see it between trees in real life situation to turn. Overall came away from this one impressed with the electric version.
Overall this was a 10/10 experience. Just top notch in every way. I've been with MB for 8 years and around these cars awhile, but this was just on another level of anything I've participated in so far.
The G650 Landaulet below is production 1 of 99. They also had one of the original 6x6 (1 or ~100 made). The green G550 is the 500k production car. They had all their Manufaktur option colors on display, but if that doesn't work you can open the drawers and find 20k color options. The resin car is the original 1979 production vehicle in 44.4 tons of resin. Also, while I was on top of The Rock the Red Bull DC Douglass plane landed at Graz Airport.
As far as the experience on the track and off-road it was truly
Impressive as these things a hella capable off-road and it's something no one uses them for in the states. I don't have a lot of video or photos off-roading as they were very strict about phones out while driving. They had a good 40-50 units on property for driving and each group as you rotated through you were assigned one G wagon to drive solo through all the activities.
4 courses that you spend about 1-1hr 15min driving solo through at the directions of the professional drivers with MB. Give you a G wagon and a radio and multiple times just said don't be dumb. Don't be dumb meant the signage said 50 and he said you know that means "around" 70-80, but probably not 100 on the one lane road track..
"The Rock" - simulated Schockl mountain driving. 60-80% inclines across rock and dirt. Driving up an 80% incline in 4lo over large rocks at full acceleration is a fun ride.
AMG track course with G63s - the new 2025s have a kinetic suspension and they're incredibly balanced at speed. It's shocking how they do not feel top heavy. Slalom course, evasive maneuvers, emergency bracking and track time etc
Forest Course - get to take a G550 off road. Mud, rock, water crossings and 20-35+ gradients. Also got the opportunity to jump one at the end. This was by far my favorite of the 4 driving groups. I also grabbed a European build diesel G wagon for this portion.
G580 - Electric G wagon. This was my first time driving one and I was actually very impressed. I am not an electric guy at all, but this car was bad ass. It was an absolute cheat code driving off road. They let us driving the electrics on the AMG course and the forest course. They're not as balanced at speeds on the AMG course as say a G63 but they're still solid. The new G turn feature would actually be very useful off road and didn't seem near as a gimmick once you see it between trees in real life situation to turn. Overall came away from this one impressed with the electric version.
Overall this was a 10/10 experience. Just top notch in every way. I've been with MB for 8 years and around these cars awhile, but this was just on another level of anything I've participated in so far.
The G650 Landaulet below is production 1 of 99. They also had one of the original 6x6 (1 or ~100 made). The green G550 is the 500k production car. They had all their Manufaktur option colors on display, but if that doesn't work you can open the drawers and find 20k color options. The resin car is the original 1979 production vehicle in 44.4 tons of resin. Also, while I was on top of The Rock the Red Bull DC Douglass plane landed at Graz Airport.
