You never truly know what a vehicle is capable of until you see it pushed to its limits by a pro — someone who isn’t particularly concerned about, say, the cost of new tires. But even manufacturer demonstration drives tend to have their limits; in the case of off-road vehicles, you’ll scramble over a few gnarly boulder trails or up and down some steep slopes, sure, but all under the precise direction of helpful instructors. It’s like off-road kindergarten, where you learn and see assorted tricks and capabilities without pushing the vehicle too hard — or discovering whether you’d be able to outrun a charging elephant down a dry creek bed in the thing.
This summer, on an Austrian mountain named Schöckl where Mercedes tests its off-road offerings, the company allowed its expert drivers to show off its famed G-Class SUV’s ability to straight-up assault a steep, craggy downhill at seemingly full throttle, with nary a concern given to preserving tires or the delicate insides of the media occupants.
It was a startling experience, one that proved how little even journalists sometime know about what modern machines are capable of. Of course, these were pro drivers who know the trucks and the trail like the backs of their hands, but all that ultimately amounts to is relative certainty that there won’t be any surprises on the way down. Otherwise, keeping pace means precise but relentlessly aggressive throttle and brake applications while sawing at the wheel constantly to keep the gyrating, undulating, oscillating and cavitating vehicle on something resembling a straight line. Were it not for the steady hand of my gimbal-mounted video camera, the cockpit views would cause you to throw up.
The caravan of G-Classes kept in tight formation all the way down, the only (entirely predictable) incident being a flat tire in one of the vehicles, which the Germans swapped out in minutes without a jack, canting the truck onto a trailside berm in order to hike up the right rear wheel enough to change it.
As eye-opening as the wild freefall was — and even with my newfound appreciation for how much abuse a Gelandewagen can absorb — such adventures are best left to those with years of experience and intimate knowledge of the vehicles. Of course, one of the ways to acquire that experience is through the kind of (repeated) coaching we in the automotive circuit often benefit from. To that end, Mercedes just opened a new G-Class Experience Center on the grounds of the former Nittner Air Base, near Graz, Austria. The center
won’t provide quite the hair-raising thrills of our plunge down the nearby Schöckl, but it does more than adequately demonstrate the capabilities of the G-Class via a gauntlet of challenges, from steep metal and dirt slopes to staircases to deep-water fording in a woodsy trail that’s peppered with numerous axle-twisting threats.
