LIVING THE DREAM

As a lifelong G-Wagon fan, visiting its birthplace in Graz, Austria, to see how it's manufactured and to experience its capabilities was an opportunity of a lifetime.

- WORDS ISHAN RAGHAVA PHOTOGRAPHY MERCEDES-BENZ

As longtime readers of the magazine will know, I've been an unabashed G-Wagon fan for decades. The G is one of those perplexing machines that don’t really make any sense, but at the same time, they are the best choices you can make. Why, after all, would anyone need a twin-turbo V8 engine in a car that was designed to go off-road and has three differential locks to make sure that it can tackle any terrain? Or why would anyone need side-exit exhausts that make an absolutely beautiful racket when you rev the car?

And yet, that's exactly what makes the G so special. The mechanical feel, the sheer solidity of its construction — well, it's all intoxicating, really. Take the doors, for instance. As our instructor at the G Experience centre joked, ‘You can't slam a G-Wagon’s door too hard — you simply need to use your strength to close it.’ When it shuts, with a solid sound of the central locking, it feels like you've sealed a vault full of precious jewels.

A GLIMPSE INTO HISTORY

Before participating in the G-Class experience, we toured the assembly line that's been manufacturing every single G-Wagon since 1979. In fact, the G is exclusively built by Magna for Mercedes at the Graz plant - the only facility in the world to do so from day one.

And we witnessed the whole plant and the processes through which a G-Wagon is built. Watching all of it in motion was fascinating. From various exterior colours to different interior trims, each G-Wagon feels like it’s made to a personal brief rather than a production quota. The pride that Graz takes in being home to the production of the G-Wagon is palpable - locals even boast about custom-built versions, like the ‘Popemobile’ based on the G580 electric, which was created for Pope Francis.

PROOF IS IN THE PUDDING