Photographs by Mercedes-Benz
At 9.30 AM on a brilliant, sunny morning in Graz, Austria, I strode eagerly into a very swish hangar with 29 other wide-eyed people. All of us were journalists, writers, and influencers of various persuasions, and we were all clutching phones and action cameras like our lives depended on them. I wore pink sneakers (because apparently I make bad life choices if I have to wake up early). An instructor handed me a lanyard and said, ‘You will not need to clean the car, but I can’t say the same about your shoes.’ I would later confirm he was not joking.
It’s not every day that a guy willingly straps himself into three tonnes of German metal, points it directly at a cliff face, and says, ‘Right, let’s see if you’re worth all this.’ But then again, it’s not every day you’re in Graz, the holy ground where every Mercedes-Benz G-Class has been built since 1979. Graz itself is a bit of a mash-up; it’s part storybook alpine town, with its red roofed old city, and part industrial powerhouse with Magna Steyr, the contract factory that hand assembles the G. It’s impossible to walk 50 paces in this town without finding three things — schnitzel, schnapps, and something reminding you this is where one of the world’s most legendary SUVs was born. If you’re a well-heeled individual, Mercedes invites you here for the G-Class Experience, a programme designed to test just how much punishment a 3-crore leather-lined brick can endure while still keeping your espresso hot and your backside massaged.
The G-Class Experience Centre is situated across what was once a military airfield, located directly opposite Graz’s civilian airport. It’s now a purpose-built warren of mud, rock and steel. Mercedes engineers apparently took one look at the land and thought, ‘Let’s terrify civilians.’ They gave their obstacles suitably theatrical names: the G-Rock (a mountain of boulders), the Iron Schöckl (an incline ramp that would shame roller coasters), and a forest course that looks like something the Brothers Grimm had a hand in designing.
My assigned steed was a blue G 580, the electric G; it gleamed in the sun, and its stance alone would have been enough to clear small crowds. Inside it were quilted leather seats, turbine air vents, ambient lighting, and the faint scent of wealth (a great deal of it). Frankly, the G-Class cabin feels absurdly civilised for something that looks capable of carving up a mountain; I half expected to find a wine list tucked into the glove box. ‘Remember,’ the instructor said, leaning into the cabin, ‘this car has three locking differentials. You will run out of courage before it runs out of traction.’ We both laughed. Not long after that, I was still laughing, but in a maniacal way.
First up was a section of extreme slope-climbing and descending, at reasonably lunatic angles; as a matter of fact, from the bottom, it looked vertical, the kind of thing you rappel down with ropes, not drive straight up in a 3-tonne SUV. ‘Don’t overthink,’ the instructor said, so I tried not to. I planted my foot, and suddenly my windshield was filled with nothing but sky. The G 580 clawed upward, its motors humming with calm authority; I literally had my hands off the steering wheel, so it did everything itself, its electronics working away effortlessly (this ability will go down well with newbies to off-roading, but purists will likely sneer a bit). At the top, I turned the G around, and then down we went, nose pointed straight at the earth’s core, my stomach somewhere near my collarbone; this time, my hands were on the steering wheel, but my foot didn’t have to touch the accelerator or brake. When I levelled out, I laughed so hard I startled myself and my driving partner, Girish Karkera. Terror, when survived in style, is clearly addictive.
The forest course was next, and I switched to a G 400 d. First up were a series of axle-twisters (a bunch of large, interspersed holes in the ground, essentially), designed to show off the differential locks and lift one (or more) wheels into the air. The idea was simple — drive slowly into one crater after another, and see how the G reacted. I did exactly that — the car rocked slowly from side to side, and the wheels took turns lifting skyward; when they came down, they compressed deep into the wheel arches at an almost grotesque inward angle.
I saw visual evidence of this later, of course, in videos shot while I was driving; in the cabin, all I could see was the horizon tilting hard left and right. The world outside was controlled chaos; mud, rocks, incline, and gravity all conspiring against me. Inside, it was so eerily calm I could have brewed a nice cup of tea. This is the G-Class’s party trick — turning off-road shenanigans into something that feels like a quiet drive to brunch. Then came the side slope, which was 35 degrees of pure pants-soiling physics. The G leaned so far over I could have plucked mushrooms off the forest floor through my window. ‘Well,’ I muttered, ‘this is how I exit stage left. Crushed by a small apartment in Austria.’ The instructor, standing outside, was as Zen as a monk, though. ‘Keep a steady throttle and the G will take care of you,’ which it did, of course. A water-wading section appeared after this, and I submerged the G up to its wheel arches; it may as well have been a puddle, given the ease with which it was dismissed.
After all the mud, rocks, and trenches, the instructors threw us onto asphalt, in a bunch of G63s; lined up for us were slalom courses, launch control runs, emergency braking, evasive manoeuvres, and the freshly minted G-Turn (in the G 580). I wasn’t too keen on the last-named activity, mainly because it involved spinning at fairly high speed on a wet surface, something that my stomach isn’t fond of. Nonetheless, I gave it a go, and it… well, spun as it was supposed to.
The slaloms proved that the G-Class can dance; it rolls a bit, but the steering is sharp and the brakes firm. I hustled it through the cones, tires squealing, feeling absurd joy at the concept of this upright box threading the course with something resembling agility. The acceleration runs were silly fun, naturally; who wouldn’t want to keep blasting off the line in a car with a bi-turbo V8, close to 600 bhp and 85 kgm? Shame about the exhaust note, though; it’s a bit too subdued for something packing this much firepower.
Between all this tomfoolery, Mercedes slipped in reminders of its legacy. A factory tour. The Amber Cube, an original 1979 G-Class entombed in resin, like a Jurassic era insect. Stories of how the first models were built for military duty, and later adopted by farmers, adventurers, and eventually, rappers and royalty.
By late afternoon, my sneakers were very much the worse for wear, but my cheeks were sore from grinning. What did I learn? The G-Class is equal parts overkill and brilliance. It’s engineered for a life most owners will never attempt, but when you let it play in its natural element, it’s unstoppable. Also, luxury and lunacy can coexist. Quilted leather and mud bogs are not necessarily mutually exclusive; they can, in fact, be soulmates. Above all, I felt a sense of gratitude. Gratitude that Mercedes still builds something this unapologetically crazy. Gratitude that I got to scare myself silly and come out laughing. Would I recommend the G-Class Experience? Absolutely. It’s expensive, yes, but so is therapy, and this makes for better stories.
