When you’re stuck somewhere in Baja, axle-deep in sand, scanning for any solid surface to strap your winch around and pull yourself free, you’ll kick yourself for settling. When the rock wash up the alpine slope gives your traction too hard a time and you start sliding backwards down the face of the mountain, you’ll curse the day. And when the felled redwood you’re romping over gets caught on the undercarriage, you’ll turn to the shotgun rider and confess: you could have gone bigger. And you should have. Times like these, you need that 4×4 squared, man.
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Mercedes-Benz has refined and bulked up and fine tuned the G-Wagen for over 36 years — only the Unimog has seen a longer production run from Stuttgart. And now, like they did with the G 63 AMG 6×6, they took their beast and gave it bigger teeth. The G-Class G500 4×42 comes with an all-wheel-drive powertrain and a beefed-up V8 that feeds out 422 horsepower to whatever ground surface you’re apt to cover. For additional ground clearance and a touch more power at reduced torque, engineers tossed in portal axles, then iced their galvanized steel cake with 22-inch wheels and 325/55 off-road tires. And for good measure, they added a handful of detachable carbon fiber body parts and gave the interior the designo treatment. The body paint, one can also hope, comes solely in highlighter yellow.
Where exactly the G500 4×42 can be driven is yet to be determined. It seems that the Mercedes-Benz G550 — with its three fully locking differentials, 382 horsepower and 391 lb-ft of torque — didn’t quite cut it for taking the Germans to every single location on Earth. So, naturally, MB beefed things up and, consequently, shrunk down that limiting list of places trucks just can’t go. So now it’s your turn to not settle. Not compromise. Not come up short. When you’re looking for a land monster that’ll get you through your sporting weekend scaling the Austrian alps without spilling your vintage Dom, there’s a new truck in town that will gladly facilitate the trip.
Editor’s Note: The G500 4×42 will premiere at the Geneva Motor Show at the beginning of March. We’ll be on the ground with more details on the G500 to come.