07/27/2025
Nearly 24 years ago, in the November 2001 issue of Car and Driver (which I remember vividly because of the 550 Maranello and Vanquish on the cover) I read this:
“In the Austrian factory where workers in blue jumpsuits assemble the G500, there is a sign that reads, "Geländewagen: Robust und Exklusiv."
That sign describes the character and appeal of the Mercedes off-roader more accurately than anything the marketing department might have dreamed up.”
Quite a dose of truth there, particularly in a day and age where all new cars are engineered and marketed towards tech. We just thought cars were becoming too tech forward in 2001. Wait till they see what we have here, in the year 2025. You can take a Microsoft Teams meeting from your new Mercedes now. Yikes.
Don’t get me wrong, I love new technology. Particularly software driven tech. Software engineering is what I do for my real job, after all. But there’s a distinct lack of permanence to software. I love that software feels wonderfully malleable on a computer. The computer can do all things, as long as I can write the code.
There is a darker side to impermanence though. Not everything should be constantly in flux, in a state of debugging. It’s become clear that cars, particularly ones with charming character flaws, have seemingly infinite permanence. That’s why we love them. Why do young kids get excited when they see old cars? Because the art and enthusiasm present in old cars translates across generations. I think that is largely being lost with the forward march of software driven cars. Frankly, the increasing control of software, and by extension control by the manufacturer of something you already own, has reached an unnerving level.
So, in this unsettling new reality I seek sensible refuge. Something interesting, something flawed but oozing with character, something I can truly own. Something that will be valued, cherished, and loved long after our time with it. Something Robust and Exklusiv, to use a phrase.
It’s rare that an ostentatious solution is the best one. But a W463 G-Wagen was just the ticket for a dose of classic, timeless practicality to the fleet. Welcome home little Geländewagen!
