It may have the flowing lines of a housebrick and the compulsive desirability of a packing crate, but the Mercedes-Benz G350 does have a certain rugged appeal. Fortunately, there’s more to it than looks. It will take a driver and 3 or 4 passengers to places that are impossible to pronounce and just as hard to reach.
Not content with that, Mercedes-Benz have loaded up the latest G350 with more luxuries than a penthouse flat and more electronics than a Blackpool arcade. Or put it another way, give Gok Wan a caveman in a bearskin and see what he can do with an unlimited budget. The end result may look polished and presentable, but underneath the glitter and the gloss, it’s still a thug in a rug.
If you want subtle, go elsewhere. Underneath the bonnet is a 3 litre V6 pumping out 211 horsepower through a seven speed automatic transmission with differential locks front and rear. On-road performance is equally silly. It will cover the nought to 60 sprint in 9 seconds and easily top 100 miles an hour. Impressed? You will be. The beast weighs 2.5 tonnes.
Inside the cabin, leather has been applied quite liberally to the front sports seats and rear three seater bench and dashboard, while the steering wheel has leather detailing. In the centre console there are more buttons, dials and controls than a Space Shuttle while the seats alone have their own controls for adjustability and heating elements. It’s even got heated rear seats!
Needless to say, the cabin has automatic climate control plus all the expected communications and Bluetooth connectivity plus in-car entertainment that is expected of a luxury car these days. The radio/CD player has a 7 inch screen with SatNav while the Harman Kardon sound system has Dolby digital speakers and DTS with 12 high performance speakers and an additional amplifier. And no, I don’t understand all that either, but if you want to blow your ears off, this is the kit to do it!
The Parktronic system includes front and rear parking sensors linked to a rear facing camera, but this is not so much to protect the G350 from damage, but other people’s cars, and perhaps even buildings if someone reverses the thing into a wall. It even has a digital TV for goodness sake.
Now some of you might have noticed that from the outside it looks rather like something more homegrown, our very own Land Rover Defender. And while there are many similarities, there is one major difference, the cabin is not such a tight squeeze, especially for the driver. That is actually quite surprising as the internal width is the same in both vehicles, yet Merc has made more of the space. Or maybe that says more about the German sauerkraut and sausage diet as opposed to our own more healthy porridge and pie enriched diets! In fact the overall dimensions of the G350 are almost exactly the same as the Defender.
It’s all so gloriously over the top that you think the Germans must be having a laugh at the expense of the world’s tasteless rich, and then you drive the machine, and suddenly it doesn’t feel so daft.
All of this luxury and comfort kit has been added without detracting from the car’s prodigious off-road ability. On road manners are surprisingly good too, the car driving straight and true without the steering wander that some of its rivals suffer. But take it off road, engage the diffs and low-range and it will clamber over and drive through just about anything.
More to the point it will tow a 3.5 tonne trailer so none of its functional ability has been lost in the pursuit of butch-bling glamour.
And finally, there is only one thing more outrageous than the specification, its ability to go off road and its acceptability in Newton Mearns, the price. You’ll get less than 2 grand change out of £100,000. Has it put me off? Not a bit of it.
Mind you, if that doesn’t tingle your tootsies, there is always the 5.5 litre V8, Bi-Turbo G63 AMG version with 544 hp and 760 Nm of torque with prices starting from £123,115. That’s two and half times the power for only 24% more money – sounds like a bargain to me!