The 500,000 Mercedes G-Class may be the trickiest in years

In 1979, the first Mercedes-Benz G-Class rolled off the production line for 4×4 specialist Magna-Steyr. It was therefore the most dedicated off-road vehicle they had ever built at Mercedes, and the G-Class often ended up in the hands of soldiers, forest rangers and humanitarian aid organisations. In recent years, however, the off-roader has become mainly a status symbol and many of its customers have a name of action and a few foreign accounts. As a result, it’s hard to imagine what a clean copy of the current G-Class would look like, but luckily Mercedes comes to the rescue.

From ‘280 GE’ to ‘EQG’

The same Magna Steyr in Austria has just produced the 500,000th G-Class, and if you close your eyes, it could be one of those from earlier years. Mercedes is even kind enough to let us know exactly what they were aiming for, and this new G’ with its green paint, five-spoke wheels and checkered interior should be reminiscent of the 280 GE from 1986. Even the turn signal lenses on the arches The wheels were painted orange, as was the case at the time.

However, a connoisseur will immediately see from the more modern bumpers and glass covers that this is not an old copy. Behind all those retro features, there is only the G-Class as it has been sold since 2018, when the car was redesigned to the smallest detail. By the way, that won’t be the last G class either, because Mercedes is taking the opportunity to remind us that they are working on an electric variant. The EQG would have an innovative battery with a higher density, a matter of making the device future-proof.