Mercedes' G Wagen proves immortal

Rich people like body-on-frame SUVs, too.

That’s the takeaway from the runaway success of Mercedes-Benz’s high-dollar G Wagen (or G class as it’s called back in Deutschland), a box-on-wheels that’s been around in essentially the same form — and hand-built in the same Austrian plant — since 1979.

Despite threats from competitors inside and outside Mercedes’ walls that nearly killed the SUV, the G Wagen’s enduring can-do appeal has earned it wealthy fans around the globe.

Originally built for military and safari applications, the G Wagen in its first few decades entered the U.S. through gray-market importing. Death by discontinuation lurked every time global sales slowed.

So, too, did death by replacement. Mercedes’ first unibody crossover, the M class — now known as the GLE — was designed to replace the G class when the M went on sale in 1997.

“The M class was meant to be the successor, but the customer base of the G class was so loyal and continued to support the vehicle that it never came to this point,” Gunnar Guethenke, head of the G-class business unit at Daimler AG, told Automotive News.

Finally, in 2002, that loyalty and interest from well-heeled, self-styled adventurers led Mercedes to officially bring the squared-off beast to the U.S. as the G500 and G55 AMG, priced at $73,600 and $89,900 (not including shipping).

For the next decade it averaged around 1,000 units a year in the U.S. But after the recession passed and gasoline prices returned to orbit, the G Wagen took off, reaching a peak of 3,950 sales in 2016.

Like other vehicles that depend on discretionary purchases (exotic and luxury cars, for example), the G Wagen is primarily sold in the “smile states” of the U.S.: Thirty seconds on the west side of Los Angeles tells you that California is its largest American market. California is followed by Texas, Florida and the New York-New Jersey region. 

G Wagen buyers are the type that dealers and automotive CFOs alike dream about: They have the second-highest household income of any model Mercedes sells (behind the S-class coupe) and their earnings vastly outpace the incomes of buyers of any of the brand’s other crossovers and SUVs. 

U.S. buyers have yet to cry mercy over the increasingly exorbitant asking price on the growing G Wagen lineup. The base is the $123,325 G550, followed by the AMG G63 that’s priced at $142,325, the recently added 621-hp V-12 AMG G65 that goes for $221,325 and the hulking, monster truck-like G550 4x4 with 17 inches of ground clearance that’s $225,925 (all prices include shipping). 

This means the G Wagen is vastly profitable for Mercedes and dealers selling it. Guethenke wouldn’t say how profitable, though he pointed out it was enough to keep the model around for 38 years.

Mercedes has plans to introduce a significantly overhauled version within the next year.

The refrigerator-box profile will carry over, though it will grow 4 inches wider for greater interior comfort and a new independent front suspension and downsized turbocharged six-cylinder engine is expected to be added.

But the body-on-frame setup? Look for that to continue since it’s central to the G Wagen’s character.

“We are convinced that there are three backbones for our off-road capabilities,” Guethenke said. “One of them is, for sure, our ladder-type frame.”

The other elements are the SUV’s trio of differential locks and its low-range gearing.

“Those three are the cornerstones that differentiate the G class from other off-roaders and that ensure both durability and off-road capability,” he added.