Professional Job

Mercedes-Benz proves there’s still value in the old-fashioned, rough-and-tumble off-roader.

- Matt Raudonikis

THE SECOND vehicle in the G-Professional range has arrived, and the wagon proves to be a better recreational vehicle than the truck.

In an era when real 4x4s are becoming rarer and most vehicles are getting softer, a new live axle, diff-locked wagon is a welcome addition to the new car showroom. We say new, but Mercedes Benz’s G-Class is closing in on four decades of service and is set to be updated in 2018 with the first new body panels in more than 35 years. Yet the G300 CDI Professional wagon is new to the Australian market for 2017.

The Gelanderwagen has been offered for sale in Australia on a few occasions over the past 38 years, and it was most recently reintroduced back in 2011 in G350, G500 and AMG models. But those ‘luxury’ versions of the G-Wagen are based on the civilian W463 chassis, while the Professional models, like the G300 CDI we are testing here, come on the heavy duty 461 platform that is shared with military vehicles used by the Australian Defence Force and military units around the globe.

We first saw the G-Professional badge with the cab chassis version in 2016. This is the five-door wagon riding on the same heavy duty chassis with a shorter wheelbase than the ute. It remains a body-on-frame design, with live axles front and rear, coil springs all around and electronically switched diff locks front, rear and centre. The four-wheel-drive system is full-time with low range, so the equipment list ticks all of the right boxes.