Extreme off-roading with a fashion icon where seeing is believing

If you’re a fan of anything off-road, the Mercedes-Benz G-Class Experience Center should be on your radar. Located in Graz, Austria, it’s a 100,000-square-metre playground dedicated to the boxiest of boxy, luxury SUVs — the iconic Mercedes-Benz G-Class.

The place itself is a former Austrian military airbase, repurposed to challenge the capabilities of the vehicle. There’s an on-road course constructed from former airstrips, a water crossing, and a forested area with deep ruts and side inclines. There are also some dizzying man-made obstacles, including one called the Iron Schoeckl, a metallic monolith named after a mountain just north of Graz.

This mountain just happens to be where Mercedes engineers provide their final sign-off on each new G-Class model. If the vehicle passes all the tests, a badge with the phrase Schoeckl Proved is applied. But if the Schoeckl proves too steep a challenge, it’s back to the factory for some fine-tuning. Since 1979, the G-Class has been built in the Magna Steyr plant nearby, so the commute from the mountain back to the drawing board is an easy one.

The Experience Center is a celebration of all things G-related. It opened in 2020, at an inopportune time because of the pandemic, but is now kicking into high gear — or low gear, as the case may be. For G-Class purchasers from Germany and Austria, it’s a delivery centre where drivers can test their new rides before taking them home. For all other attendees, it’s a place where you can send the manufacturer’s own small fleet of recent Gs over and above the nearest obstacle and live to tell the tale — presumably.

Over the past decade, the Mercedes-Benz G-Class has transformed from off-road workhorse to high-riding fashion icon. You’re now far more likely to see a G in Beverly Hills than on the side of some mountain. But the same engineering that underpinned the first G for the civilian market is still there in the latest version, which just arrived this year.

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Ladder frame construction? Check. Four-wheel drive system? Check. Three locking differentials? Check, check and check. These are the tools with which visitors tackle the various obstacles the Experience Centre has to offer.

Our experience encompassed only the gas-powered version, but it is safe to assume the centre will feature electric versions in the near future.

First up is a gigantic mound of earth with various routes to a flat top. Most remain covered in dirt; another is littered with jagged rocks. All differ in rate of incline. Before tackling each, the G-Class instructor riding shotgun provides expert advice: How many of the three differentials to lock, which gear to select and whether or not the automatic hill descent control system is required.

At first, each one of the routes seems impossible – the angles too steep, the traction too limited, the rocks too rocky. But seeing is believing. Once you become familiar with what the G-Class can do, you’re encouraged to take on even more daunting obstacles. You know that incline you just negotiated going forward? This time you slap the G into reverse. Here, you rely on the vehicle’s multiple on-board cameras to make sure you don’t veer off the edge.

There’s also a forested section that shows other strengths. When the trail through the trees leads to a large berm, the instructor urges you to steer the vehicle halfway up the obstruction. This manoeuvre proves the Mercedes can handle an extreme roll angle without tumbling onto its side.

According to the instrumentation, we hit a 38-per-cent (20-degree) lean on the berm, which was extreme enough to stick my arm out the side window and come close to touching the ground. The G-Class is capable of up to a 40-per-cent lean before you need to call the repair shop.

To demonstrate one final trick, we head to the Iron Schoeckl, a ramp with an incline of 100-per-cent, or 45 degrees. For this challenge, I’m instructed to switch seats with the instructor, an indication of the intimidating nature of the task. If a visitor were to steer off-course … well, it’s a very long way down.

For the instructor, though, it’s no sweat. He expertly pilots the G-Class down the ramp, sections of metal creaking and complaining the entire way. This is another seeing-is-believing moment. The feeling is very much like we’ve driven off the edge of a cliff, but we’re still suspended in mid-air. For sure, if my seatbelt hadn’t been fastened, I would’ve blasted through the windshield like a crash test dummy.

The engineering behind the Mercedes-Benz G-Class is so profoundly extreme, it would be impossible to approach its limits during everyday scenarios. In this way, it’s a shame that most of the people who drive the thing have no sense of its true capability. With the G-Class, it’s form meeting function meeting fashion.

The writer was a guest of the automaker. Content was not subject to approval.