Geländewagen maniacs, it's finally okay to release that deep breath you've been holding in ever since you heard Daimler was redesigning your hero. When the new version of the Mercedes-Benz G-Wagen arrives, it will still look just as squared-off as ever, according to the company's head designer.
"You have to keep [the G-Wagen] boxy," Gorden Wagener, Daimler AG's chief design officer, told Automotive News at the New York Auto Show last week. "You have to treat it very responsible, otherwise it wouldn't be a G. So it still has to be edgy."
But the redesigned G-Class will be plenty different, he said. Every visible part of the SUV (save for a small piece of plastic trim on the C-pillar) will be new, he told AW.
Wagener said Mercedes-Benz's designers took advantage of their chance to update the iconic, utilitarian sport-ute and give it a little additional maturity by tweaking the proportions and smoothing over the rough edges. "You have to clean it up," he said.
The designer didn't specify when the next-generation G-Wagen will make its debut, other than to remark to AW that the new Geländewagen would arrive in the "not too distant future."
And while Mercedes-Benz has been mum on what else the world can expect from the next version of its O.G. off-roader, we at The Drive fully expect that a) it'll be highly competent on any terrain, and b) it'll offer a series of ridiculously powerful AMG-sourced V8 and V12 engines that seem completely counterintutive to its off-road, mil-spec roots. Because anything else just wouldn't be a G-Wagen.
