Say Hello To The AMG-Fettled, 170kg Lighter New Mercedes G-Class

It may look much the same as ever, but the 2018 Mercedes-Benz G-Class brings the 39-year-old classic right into the present… with the help of AMG.

Mercedes’ legendary performance arm has had a surprisingly large hand in the hyper-manly flagship off-roader’s development, supplying a new double-wishbone front suspension setup and a detuned version of the AMG GT’s 4.0-litre biturbo V8.

Sadly the UK won’t get the range-topping G500 with that 416bhp motor, because we’re delicate flowers, but many other nations will. We don’t have confirmation of what options we’ll get instead, but bank on a 350-badged diesel as one of them.

A specially-adapted version of Mercedes’ nine-speed automatic gearbox has found its way into the all-new car. Refinement and on-road manners are much-improved as a result, without having to ditch a super-low-ratio first gear for off-road crawling, or ground clearance; the new rides 6mm higher off the road.

The new aluminium and ultra-high-tensile steel body is partly responsible for a dramatic 170kg weight cut, but the classic exterior door hinges have been maintained alongside more neatly-integrated wheel arches. It’s 53mm longer and 121mm wider, with 38mm more legroom on the front and 150mm more in the back. Interior elbow room is up by 68mm in the front – handy if the Christmas period has left you feeling a little wider than you did.

While it’s more refined on the road, off it the G-Wagen is a beast. It can climb 45-degree slopes where there’s enough grip, can ford 70cm of water and will feel a whole lot more capable while doing it thanks to 55 per cent more torsional rigidity and new, more precise electromechanical steering – a first for the previously mod-con-shy G-Class.

On top of Comfort, Sport, Eco and Individual driving modes, much like you’ll find on existing Mercedes models, there’s a special G-Mode on the selector dial. It can be chosen manually, but it activates automatically when the driver fires up any of the three 100 per cent differential locks – front, rear and centre – or the low-range transmission feature.

It’s ridiculously luxurious for passengers. The cabin is now built to be more like a luxury car’s than ever. There’s heating front and rear for the ‘ergonomically-designed’ seats and an option to upgrade to the Active Multicontour Seat Package with fully climate-controlled seats and, at the front, fun pneumatic side bolsters that inflate during cornering to keep you stabler.

In a hilarious bit of marketing guff, Mercedes says that “fans of classic round instruments will certainly not be disappointed.” By this, it means that the new car absolutely doesn’t have classic round dials. As we reported a few weeks ago, it has two 12.3-inch widescreens side-by-side beneath a shared glass cover. The displays are wholly digital and change according to a choice of Classic, Sport and Progressive viewing modes, whatever that last one means. Not that classic, then.

We’re really pleased to see the new car so faithfully hang onto the old-school looks, though, which were first launched in 1979. The LED daytime running lights are a giveaway but the styling totally works. We don’t have UK pricing yet, but the cheapest car in Germany will start at €107,040.50.

We’re not sure the extra 50 cents are really necessary…