Tag: G500

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Tuner Tuesday: 1999 Mercedes-Benz G500

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Have your eye on that G63 AMG 6X6 Brabus B700 but can’t swing the $1,895,000 price tag? I might have a solution for you. You are probably looking at the title and seeing 1999 G500 and looking at the photo not seeing a 1999 G500. I have an answer to that question as well. This W463 started life as your regular G500 and was transformed into a faux Brabus B700 6X6 by master craftsmen in Eastern Europe. You are probably chuckling when I say ”master craftsmen” and ”Eastern Europe” in the same sentence, but hear me out on this one.

As you might have noticed this G is not in Miami like the listing says, but is actually in the city of Lutsk in Western Ukraine parked outside of a khrushchyovka and a store that sells fertilizer. Mercedes made less than 100 6x6s in total and Brabus converted a handful to their B700-spec so it’s not you can just go grab a 6×6 body from the local parts department. Being a former resident of Ukraine, I reached out to this seller to ask a laundry list of questions as to how this 6×6 came to be. The seller said the entire body was custom fabricated by his team and all the carbon fiber pieces, including the giant fenders, were made custom by his factory that molds carbon fiber pieces. How he got all the specs and dimensions, he wouldn’t tell me. Simply ”its secret”. When I asked if Mercedes or Brabus contacted him, seeing as he somehow replicated one of their most exclusives vehicles ever that sold over $700,000, he replied that they had not, but he hopes to sell the 6×6 before they do. As for the mechanicals, it is a 6×6 system that fully functions and mentioned that while it is fun to drive, actually parking this monster is less than ideal. Oh yeah, we haven’t even talked about the interior yet.

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1999 Mercedes-Benz G500 on eBay

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Rust in pieces: 2002 Mercedes-Benz G500

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Update 9/27/18: This G-Wagen sold for $17,366.89

Few things in this world are undefeated. The internet is one of them, taxes, death and then the ultimate final boss, mother nature. You can hide or try to fight it all you want, but the world very rarely has mercy on vehicles. Today’s vehicle, a 2002 Mercedes-Benz G500, was spared no mercy. Granted, this G-Wagen lives in the harsh climate of Quebec, Canada, but what this poor W463 turned into will make anyone scratch their head as to what happened. This brick on wheels has an extreme amount of rust to the point where there are holes the size of your fist in the body panels. These Gs have somewhere of a propensity to rust in some common areas, but I don’t understand how this G500 got this bad. As what it did for the value? I suppose not much.

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 2002 Mercedes-Benz G500 on eBay

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2019 Mercedes-Benz G500

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Here it is. After a 28-year run as the W463 and nearly four decades in the same bodywork, the new Mercedes-Benz G-Wagen is here. Despite still looking like a G-Wagen, the 2019 W464 just has five parts carried over from the W463. The headlight washers, sun visors, D-pillar vents, outside door handles and the spare tire cover. Other than that, it’s all new. Mercedes was pretty much forced to do this. Their core buyers, the Kardashians of the world, were growing tired of the clunky old G-Wagen that drove like a farm tractor despite paying well over $100,000 for one. Almost every automaker is making a full-size luxury SUV now and if you don’t advance, you suffer. Mercedes knows this, so here we are. The new 2019 G500. Do you like it?

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 2018 Mercedes-Benz G500 at Auto Scout 24

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2002 Mercedes-Benz G500 Faux×Faux²

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Do you really want a Mercedes-Benz G550 4×4² but short about $200,000? Well, I have a solution for you. This is a 2002 G500 up for bid in New Jersey that has been jacked up thanks to a suspension lift and 40 inches. Not to end it there, the body work has been added to mimic a 4×4² thanks to the W463 literally staying the same for the past 15 years. All this sounds pretty good in theory, but put in practice like we see here, I think it’s a disaster. Let me tell you why.

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 2002 Mercedes-Benz G500 on eBay

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1999 Mercedes-Benz G500 Cabriolet

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Another week, another G-Wagen. Last week it was the crazy G55 AMG limousine and the week before that it was the short wheelbase G500 for sale in the UK. Today, we have another short wheelbase G but as you might have noticed, this one has a little extra feature. This is a 1999 G500 Cabriolet that was federalized by Europa (read more here about them) for sale in New Jersey with a little over 65,000 miles. It’s a no-frills G outside of that slick power top that will make any Wrangler or Defender owner as jealous as can be. But the price, are you sitting down?

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1999 Mercedes-Benz G500 Cabriolet on eBay

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2001 Mercedes-Benz G500

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I’ve looked at my fair share of Mercedes-Benz G-Wagens here. From the rusty 1985 280GE for $12,950 to the street-legal monster truck 2017 G550 4×4² for over $250,000, I’ve covered nearly all of them. They all make sense in one way or another as you can basically find a G to do anything you really need it to do. Need a military vehicle? Here is a 1991 230GE. How about a fire truck? Another 1991 230GE. Topless beach cruiser? I’ve got a 1992 300GD for you. But this 2001 G500 3-door for sale in Hampshire, England is a mystery to me and I wish I knew the full story. Let me explain.

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 2001 Mercedes-Benz G500 on Hemmings

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Roll the dice? 2003 Mercedes-Benz G500 with 318,000 miles

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I have an affinity for vehicles that have hit the moon milestone (238,900 miles) while looking like they’ve done so with relative ease. For this 2003 G500, it has already hit the moon and is halfway home on the return trip. I think people have an irrational fear of higher mileage vehicles because they’ve either been with been with cars that didn’t age well or they’ve been told that higher mileage automatically means “bad”. There is some merit in that the more miles a vehicle has, the greater the risk of things failing, but I believe that you get out cars what you put in them — which a few exceptions, of course.

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 2003 Mercedes-Benz G500 on Los Angeles Craigslist

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#FailFriday: 1998 Mercedes-Benz G500 Cabrio

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gg1

Welcome back to Fail Friday: Where once good cars can hopefully get the help they deserve. Today’s vehicle is a result of what happens when people just simply have too much money. It’s not the fact that it’s the ultra-rare W463 G500 Cabrio, it’s the fact that someone decided to turn it into a driving Salvador Dali gallery. I have lots of questions and not a lot of answers so let’s try to sum up this surreal G-Wagen located in Germany.

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 1998 Mercedes-Benz G500 Cabrio on eBay

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2000 Mercedes-Benz G500 Europa

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e1

So lets start off with a quick Thursday evening history lesson. Way back in the grand time known as the year 2002, Mercedes-Benz finally decided to officially grace North America with its wonderful Geländewagen, or ”G-Wagen” for short. Or, ”G-Wag” if the next words in the sentence are ”sittin’ on 22-inch rimz.” So with the G-Wagen starting production 1979 and Mercedes never officially offering them for sale at dealers until the model year 2002, someone had to feed the need of wealthy North Americans who saw these on their vacations in Swiss Alps and wanted to get something else besides a P38 Range Rover that had a permanent EAS Fault message on the dash.  That ”someone” were the guys at Europa G-Wagen located in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Their business was pretty straight forward, they would bring over G-Wagens from Europe, do all the very expensive dirty work of federalizing these SUVs so they weren’t subject to the 25-year import rule, then distribute them all over the country. Their business did so well that they became the exclusive U.S. importer of the G-Wagen and eventually gained U.S. Small Volume Manufacturer status. This all went really well until 2002 until Mercedes gave them the ”we’ll take it from here” and bought the U.S. distribution rights from Europa. This left the company to focus more on service, parts and accessions. Today, Europa still dabbles in importing G-Wagens, but mostly in the models we never got here such as the three door Cabrio.

So, every once in a blue moon one of these W463 Europa SUVs pop up for sale. Today, we have a 2000 G500 in Colorado that deserves a closer look.

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 2000 Mercedes-Benz G500 Europa on eBay

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Feature Listing: 2000 Mercedes-Benz G500 Cabriolet

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I have to admit, I’m not normally drawn to trucks or even cars that masquerade as trucks. You know that expression ‘It’s a Jeep thing, you wouldn’t understand!’? They’re right. I don’t understand. They’re loud, uncomfortable, hugely unreliable, rust quickly and accelerate slowly. They get horrible fuel mileage, launch their occupants out when they crash, and aren’t really particularly attractive. And I’m pretty thankful that I’m married to a woman who generally agrees with me when it comes to these things. That’s why I was particularly surprised when she rather unceremoniously announced that she’d be happy to drive around in a Mercedes-Benz Geländewagen. The surprise was doubled because in spite of my claims above, the G-wagen is something I love too.

For the last few decades, the G models have remained effective unchanged. While models like the Jeep Wrangler and Toyota FJ-Cruiser have tried re-imagined retro-rough styling, the Geländewagen marches on as an unapologetic Dinosaur from the late Cretaceous period. Sure, it’s been updated with swanky interiors and more modern electronics and engines. Indeed, you can get some pretty nutter supercharged models if you need to pummel trails that much more quickly. And the Geländewagen has opened up into a new crowd who doesn’t hit the trails, but fits large wheels and blacks out everything. It is one of the few mass appeal, truly do-anything vehicles ever produced. There are plenty of models to choose from, but the ones that always capture my attention are the rare Cabriolets such as this 2000 G500:

CLICK FOR DETAILS: 2000 Mercedes-Benz G500 Cabriolet at Sun Valley Autos

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