Mercedes G-wagen G350D review: Beast on a leash

$186,000 for a slow, uneconomical, uncool German army lorry. What was Mercedes thinking?

The Mercedes G350D.

The enormous Henry Willis organ at the Royal Albert Hall in London has 147 stops and a bewildering array of 9999 pipes. It is a colossus. A shrieking, bellowing blitzkrieg of chest-smashing decibels. So imagine all those disappointed faces at the Proms classical music festival if someone decided to replace it with a nice upright piano. Well, that’s what Mercedes has done with the G-wagen. Removed the hadron collider from under its bonnet and replaced it with a penny whistle.

It was ballsy of Mercedes not only to keep the G-wagen in production but also to decide that it should be gently updated and fitted with all sorts of new stuff the previous versions didn’t have, such as steering. I mean, why would you persevere with a car that had no place in an increasingly green world? And why would you decide that the only engine you’d offer was a twin-turbocharged V8 that came with enough torque and power to move tectonic plates? It’s hard to think of a single thing more out of step with current thinking. Driving one of these is like sitting in the royal box at Wimbledon in a mankini.

I think I know why Mercedes did it, though. Because there are enough customers who will always want a very large, very noticeable off-road car. These people bought Humvees, and before that Jeep Wranglers.

I think the twin-turbo V8 Mercedes-AMG G 63 is a hilarious and wonderful car, and said so when I reviewed it last year. But I don’t think it would be hilarious or wonderful if you removed its reason for being – that colossal engine – and replaced it with a miserable diesel. What would be the point?

The only reason you’d buy a G-wagen is its full-fatness, and you don’t get that from a diesel. Are you saying you care about the planet? Really? So you’ve bought a 2.5-tonne tank that runs on a fuel that kills old ladies in their beds. You might as well try to win hearts and minds by hosting a world turtle-strangling competition.

There is no reason Mercedes should have fitted its leviathan with a diesel power plant. But it has. And it gets worse, because it’s the 3-litre six-cylinder unit you’ll find in E-class and S-class models. Except, for reasons that are not clear, it’s been detuned in the G-wagen, so it’s even less powerful. In theory, a detuned engine will be more fuel-efficient, but the G 350 diesel can manage only 9.6 litres per 100km, which isn’t much more than you get from the AMG V8 monster. And here’s the final, and perhaps biggest, problem. It costs more than 96,000 quid. That’s $186,000 for a slow, uneconomical, five-seat, uncool German army lorry.

I was intrigued, so I decided to borrow one. It arrived nose-first in my drive and I had to execute a 6000-point turn to get it out. And then I was on the road and – oh dear. Yes, the new G-wagen is much more composed than those from yesteryear, but it still has a ladder chassis, like Stephenson’s Rocket. And this makes the ride very busy. It doesn’t glide; it lurches.

Speed? It’s better than I was expecting, bearing in mind the feeble engine and the fact that the front end has the aerodynamic properties of the British Library. But it’s not a speedy car. Perhaps that’s a good thing, because it’s tall, so it’d probably fall over if you went round a corner too quickly.

Then there’s the boot. The door opens sideways, which means in town centres it doesn’t open at all. Why didn’t it go for a split, folding system like on a Range Rover?

Off road? Lots of buttons can now be pressed to engage various differential locks, and that’s excellent. But when I tried the car in my fields, the ground was sodden. In such conditions you aren’t going anywhere unless you have proper winter tyres. And the G-wagen didn’t.

Now to the good stuff. The interior is beautifully done. There’s all sorts of disco lighting to play with when you’re stuck in traffic. The dash is a joy to behold and wonderful to use. When you’re inside, it feels as though it may be worth the money. But if you are disposed towards a car such as this you’re going to want the full soundtrack and a throttle pedal that lets you pull out all the stops. You’re going to want the Henry Willis-AMG version. If you don’t, you’re going to want something else entirely.

Mercedes G350D

Engine: 3.0-litre turbo-diesel V6 (210kW/600Nm)

Average fuel 9.6 litres per 100km

Transmission: Nine-speed automatic, all-wheel drive

Price: £96,180 (this variant n/a in Australia)

Rating: ★★★