No mediocre here, just shiny chrome eternal

Warboy Alwyn Viljoen discovers
why Merc ute drivers are cooler and have more fans.
Photo: Toby

MERCEDES-Benz South Africa (MBSA) this week went where no luxury sport ute has gone before, all to launch a brace of G-class models to media and dealers on the site where the desert chase scenes of the last Mad Max movie were shot in Namibia.

(Disclaimer time -- my travel and accommodation cost were paid for by MBSA. So please roll with it, dear sponsors, while I also mention competing brands in the space your kind invite earned in my associated print media.)

Fighting words from the desert

With the legendary G-Class donating its go-anywhere genes to turn from the small A-class to the
plush S-Class into formidable offroaders, CEO of the MBSA Fioran Seidler says nobody now offers a better combination of dynamic efficiencies in the SUV range than Merc does.

Fioran Seidler programming the Satnav in a GLC.

These fighting words from the desert are not only aimed at BMW’s X-range or Audi’s Q-series, but to all sellers of SUVs. For all the SUV sellers are right now adding a lot more spec and/or huge discounts on top of high trade-ins to make that rare sale.

Toyota next week launches yet another facelift of the ever green Land Cruiser range in those same dunes; Mitsubishi has already added 70 000 rands in serious offroad kit to the ageing Pajero and in the 600 to 700k price range, the new Ford Everest is now selling big SUV standards for medium SUV money, including the electric-fold down rear seats only found in the Merc’s top-of-the-range G-class offers.

Namibia's oily sand roads don't play nice with paint. 

Which may explain why, through rocky canyons, on oily sand roads and while cresting steep dunes, Merc showed no mercy in flogging the shiny chrome on all the new G-class models. 

In the process, all the models showed they can go anywhere where their road clearances allow. But note, while these utes are very, very good, they will not turn tar drivers into dune-cresting heroes.

Instead, the responsive steering, wide wheels and willing engines will obey the orders of inexperienced drivers to bog down. 

This resulted in the plaintive sounds of wrenched plastics as the G-Wagons had to snatch-rope us novices out of trouble. But Merc made sure to have bumpers in stock, for like all Mad Max fans they know if you can’t fix what is broken, you go insane.

Oh, what lovely little fans!

Of course only someone with anger issues as intense as those harboured by a Furiosa will ever take these luxury SUV close the rocks and dunes we launched them over. But let the record show Merc was not afraid to prove their plush sport utes over the same routes currently dominated by Toyota Land Cruisers and Mitsubishi Delicas.

As to the question who would be mad enough to send an ‘entry-level’ R600k car into the desert, instead of abusing one of the five times cheaper grey imports that Namibians can buy, the answer lies in what the extra half a bar gets you.

Inside the cubbyhole, a bottle of scented water
wafts nice smellies into the air ducts.

At the last count the Merc models offer 15 active driver assist systems, not including two small fans in the front seats, nor the bottle of scented water that wafts nice smells into the air ducts. 

Is was 44 degrees Celcius outside while we played in a baking rock canyon, but those two fans kept the Merc passengers’ butts cool as they rested on Merc’s famous “man-made” leather. 

Make no mistake, these fans are a VERY important feature in cars for all the guys creating nutscape art.

The Prado drivers instead drip their butt-sweat onto the skin of the poor dead cow that covers their seats -- and while on the topics of leather covers, how literally and figuratively cool is Merc's pleather? No animals are harmed in the making of this fake stuff and ANYTHING that reduces cow farms is not only good for earth, but benefits our collective karma. 

So you can state for a fact (and philosophically) that Merc drivers are cooler and have more fans than any grey import driver.

The little seat fans are standard in the top-end of the range is the GLS, but it arrives only later next year. All the other models are already on order at a dealer near you.

The author saving  a pics under "mission - get one of these".

C-Class utes for rides eternal

All drivers who hope to one day be carried to Valhalla, shiny and chrome for ever, will lust after the 1,4 million rand AMG 63 G-Wagon with its insane V8 petrol engine. 

Seidler’s experience as former director of cars at MBSA, however, has him predicting most people will sensibly settle for the C-Class sport ute, which cost less or about the same as a Ford Everest and also offers drivers more ability than they will ever use in city driving.

Four GLC models are available on the market launch, all of them equipped with 4Matic permanent all-wheel drive and the 9G-Tronic nine-speed automatic transmission.

On slippery surfaces the auto-shifters’s torque converter provides traction when you need it, but as we city slickers discovered in Namibia’s dunes, not even the nine lives in the gearbox will help you when you go too slow on sand that has the consistency of thick mud.

If the Lotto ever pays out, the insane G-Wagon AMG 63 is my first choice. But while I have to work for my money, the 250d hits my wallet's sweet spot in the GLC range. 
Like the bigger oil burner in Chev's Trailblazer, Merc's quietly rumbling diesel makes 500 Newtons at low revs — ideal to keep the tyres turning when you are driving over soft sand — and its work rate of 150 kiloWatts makes the speed you want over the long, boring roads towards those dunes.

All models are covered by a six-year or 100 000 km Premium Drive maintenance plan.

South African GLC prices (4Q2015)

• GLC 220d 4MATIC (125 kW/400 Nm) R559 900

• GLC 250d 4MATIC (150 kWm/500 Nm) R619 900

• GLC 250 4MATIC (155 kW/350 Nm) R604 900

• GLC 300 4MATIC (180 kW/370 Nm) R654 900