Teamspeed First Drive: Mercedes-Benz G55 AMG
#1
02-23-2012, 08:33 AM
Teamspeed First Drive: Mercedes-Benz G55 AMG Teamspeed First Drive: Mercedes-Benz G55 AMG
Stuff a 500hp V8 into one of the most capable SUV's ever and you've got a recipe for fun!
By Jesse Taylor - Teamspeed Contributing Editor
What is it? The original monster truck. Launched in 1979, the G-wagen is the longest-serving model in Mercedes history. In 2003, AMG fitted it with a supercharged 5.4-liter V8.
Why do I care? Despite being only two years younger than me, I’ve never driven a G-wagen
How fast is it? 5439cc supercharged V8, 500hp@6100rpm (373kW), 516lb ft@6000rpm (700Nm), 0-62mph 5.5sec, 130mph vmax (limited)
How much is it? From $124,450
Over the last 15 years my job has afforded me the very great opportunity to drive the world’s best cars. I’ve made stops everywhere from Aston to Zonda with frequent visits to the lands of Ferrari, Lamborghini and Porsche. Hell, I’ve ever had a one night stand with a Veyron. McLaren F1 aside, there’s very little I’ve not driven.
I’m not telling you this because I’m a look-at-me-motoring-journo. I tell you because, like you I’m sure, there is always something a true car enthusiast wants to drive. For nearly a decade, there’s been an enormous hole in my driving resume and only now have I managed to fill it – stuff it full of 500hp, 5721lbs G55 actually.
I’ve been in love with the G55’s 5.4-liter, supercharged V8 since 2003 when I first drove the R230 SL55 AMG powered by the same insane engine. On a two mile runway, I hammered the big roadster from zero to its 155mph speed limiter, braked back to zero, got back on the gas and thundered up to 155mph again before braking back to a stop. The test had no scientific merit, but jeez it was fun.
A few months later, I heard AMG was putting the same engine into its G-wagen – a car born in 1979. I’ve been waiting to drive a G55 since 2003.
When I first locked eyes on ‘my’ very black G55 I laughed out load. It was an involuntary reaction to the cartoon size and set-square design of this SUV that has its roots in military applications. Thirty three armies from Australia to the United States run or have run G-wagens over the last 30 years.
At just shy of six-foot-six, the imposing monster truck towers eight inches above me and the jutting side pipes are at the perfect height to BBQ third-degree ovals into my knee as I load my two children into the back seat. But the school run has never been more fun.
Few ‘cars’ this side of a neon Lambo, with doors upswept for maximum drama, attract more attention than the G55. Car enthusiasts are fast on the draw with their camera phones, non-car people stare open-mouthed, mothers shield the ears of their children and cops chuck U-turns and flick on their lights. I was stopped three times in four days; “Just a license check, sir.”
After explaining that the G55 was a press car and that I was a journo, most cops changed their suspicious attitudes. One even admitted that he stopped me because, “you just had to be a dealer in something like this.” One officer, however, took some convincing that the G55’s supercharged V8 and fat side pipes were factory legit and not illegal modifications.
The engine fires with all the subtlety of an artillery barrage, the enormously potent V8 gently rocking the 2.6-tonne mobile command center on its springs (for those with a technical bent, the G55 runs a separate chassis with live axles at both ends). Huge power and torque is available everywhere in the rev range and is always accompanied by a NASCAR soundtrack. Torque peaks with 700Nm from 2750-4000rpm but rev the mighty bent-eight to 6100rpm and you’ll be rewarded with an even 500hp (373kW).
But unlike modern monster trucks like Porsche’s Cayenne Turbo or the BMW X5 and X6M, the G55’s power delivery is fearsome. Because of the crudity of the chassis, you are always driving/fighting this monster. It bucks and squirms, hisses and roars – it’s like driving a dragon.
The five-speed torque converter auto – the same used in the first series of R230 SL55s – is a smooth operator under the circumstances. It grabs ratios up and down without fuss or any real haste.
The engine does a superb job to mask the 2.6-tonne mass, something at which the brakes, chassis and steering are dramatically less successful. Mercedes claims a 0-100km/h (62mph) sprint in 5.5 seconds, which I manage to undercut by a tenth. It is the most ludicrous vehicle to which I’ve ever attached the timing gear.
Later I find a sufficiently quiet road to stretch the beast to 125mph (just 5mph short of the speed limiter) and I’m still shaking as I type these words four days later. Though 90mph short of my personal Vmax, and 45mph short of what I’ve hit in a Cayenne Turbo, 125mph in a G55 is harder work than your first ever lap of the Nurburgring.
On anything less than pool-table-smooth tarmac, the G’s old-school chassis tech is constantly fighting its mass and the monstrous twisting shove of that blown V8. The re-circulation ball steering is slow and vague and no matter how much lock you wind on for a corner, it won’t be enough. The brakes, while heroic in their attempts, are tasked with the near impossible. Spend more than a few seconds at wide open throttle and there’s a disconcerting feeling that you’re no longer in charge and that the G55 has morphed into a runaway locomotive or charging bull elephant. Every corner slowed for and negotiated is celebrated with an inner fist-pump, but the flood of adrenalin just encourages you to open the taps again on one of the all-time great engines starting the process anew.
The view from the driver’s seat is commanding. You stare down at fellow commuters with all the authority of a dictator glaring down from the balcony as his army marches by. In my week with the G55, I suffered more than one delusion of grandeur, brought on by the sheer invincibility of the Merc.
The interior itself is well-appointed, but there’s no hiding that the car started life before Reagan came to power. The scattered and chunky switchgear would give Audi interior designers fits of laughter or nightmares.
If I’m honest, the G55 has got to be the worst hi-po SUV a lot of money can buy. Porsche does it vastly better with the Cayenne Turbo, ditto Range Rover with its supercharged Vogue or Sport models, BMW with X5 and X6 Ms, and Jeep with its surprisingly refined Grand Cherokee SRT8. And let’s not forget Mercedes’ own ML63, now available with the thumping 5.5-litre twin-turbo V8.
But none of these vehicles have the character, charm and military chops of the G-wagen. While this review might be largely negative, the G55 is one of those vehicles that get under your skin, and I can’t recall laughing so much driving any other car – Veyron included. Money no object, I could find a place for the G55 AMG in my fantasy garage – perhaps to help sell the family-car practicality of say a GT3 RS 4.0 to my wife. I imagine G55 owners still giggle every time they open their garage doors. That, or run away and hide under their beds.
