GRAZED BY A G

"THERE ARE PLACES YOU VISIT, AND THEN THERE ARE PLACES THAT SWALLOW YOU WHOLE chew you up with 100 per cent gradients, and spit you out grinning like a madman.

- WORDS RAMESH SOMANI

Graz, Austria, the holy land of the G-Class, is one of those places. Recently, I was invited to go and experience it, and let me tell you, it was nothing short of a holy pilgrimage. The drive from Munich to Graz was very scenic. We drove in a convoy of GLEs and GLCs, with one white G-Wagen leading the charge and teasing us with the promise of the prize awaiting us in Graz. The factory tour was impressive, with fewer robots and more human hands sealing every G and making it road legal. For decades, the iconic G-Wagen has rolled out of Magna Steyr’s plant here, earning its stripes on the nearby Schöckl mountain, where every prototype is punished before being deemed worthy of the three-pointed star. But Mercedes went a step further. They turned an old airfield just outside Graz into a G-Class experience centre essentially Disneyland for grownups who like their playgrounds muddy, vertical, and terrifying. Naturally, I had to check in.

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