THERE WILL BE MUD
Taking a Benz pavement princess into the wilds casts it in a whole new light
We were somewhere around Whistler, on the edge of the wilderness, when the reptilian brain began to take hold.
With apologies to Hunter S. Thompson, that’s what I was thinking as the procession of $150,000 luxury sport-utes began their full ascent of a muddy, rutted logging road on an overcast day earlier this week.
You might recall about a decade ago there was a story making the rounds about a Dr. Clotaire Rapaille, a French psychologist who explained North Americans’ fascination with hulking SUVs in terms of the reptilian brain. In essence, to increase one’s chances of survival, the bigger, the taller, the stronger, all the better.
“We are at war,” the good doctor said at the time, referring to the Iraq skirmish. “You don’t go to war in a Pinto or in a little Volkswagen. You want a tank, you want, you know, an SUV — and if you put a machine-gun on the top, you’re going to sell them better, you know.”
While the half-dozen 2016 Mercedes-Benz G550s weren’t equipped with machine-guns, with three locking differentials, intimidating, 90-degree-angled exteriors, and 400-plus horsepower twin-turbo V8s, it’s not hyperbole to make a valid comparison to rolling artillery.
That said, the only thing our group of Canadian automotive journalists was attacking were the hills, hollows and obstacles that abound in this valley, made world-famous back in 2010 as the ski jumping and Nordic events venue for the Vancouver-Whistler Winter Olympic Games.
We were taking part in what’s called the Mercedes-Benz Driving Experience, typically offered to customers and set on closed courses where the bounds of the automaker’s vehicles can be reached, and just maybe exceeded.
AMG performance cars are put through their paces on racetracks and on frozen lakes, and SUVs are put to the test on rugged off-road trails.
This particular event in Whistler marked the first time Canada has hosted such an event for the G-Class, and customers from as far away as Poland and Mexico jetted in to push the luxury SUV units to their limits.
In many ways, the “experience” is not unlike these uber-SUVs.
There’s equal measure luxury and utility, the former coming by way of an overnight at the fivestar Four Seasons Whistler and a dinner at its exceptional Sidecut Steakhouse; the latter with the “Cowboy Lunch” stop at a rustic cabin situated by a mountain lake at 1,500 metres.
Likewise, the vehicles themselves exhibit those seemingly mismatched traits of luxury and utility, with leather-upholstered, wood-trimmed passenger compartments and off-roading ability matched by only a few production vehicles. Rigs like select models from the Land/Range Rover stable and a handful of Jeep Wranglers.
None, however, hold a candle to the “G” if military-grade looks are what turn your crank.
That fact was in full display Monday morning in the Four Seasons circular driveway, where the freshly washed G550s awaited their assignment for the day.
One can only imagine what locals thought as the procession filed out in tight formation and headed through town and 10 minutes down Highway 99 to the Callaghan Valley turnoff.
Once there, things got serious as we were instructed by the lead guide in the lead vehicle — via two-way radios placed in each unit — to engage the low gear setting. Once done, we left the paved world behind and headed for the hills down a scrabbly gravel road, one that our guide promised was like a “highway” compared to where we were heading. Bouncing over the potholes, my driving partner looked at me with a raised eyebrow, as if to say, “this guy’s laying it on pretty thick, don’t you think?”
Seven hours later, as we travelled back down the same road and back toward civilization, he didn’t need to take back his face gesture statement. We were both thinking the same thing as we bounced through the same potholes: “This does feel like a highway!”
Suffice to say that what occurred in the interim was an amazing demonstration of the abilities of these vehicles, the vast majority of which never see a potholed road, let alone the twofoot water crossings, 30-degree hills and deeply rutted roads we encountered. Which is a shame considering they are certainly engineered to do amazing things. Sort of like all those lovely supercars that never see a race track.
We’d enabled the centre and rear differential locks at times they were required, sometimes individually, sometimes in tandem. We’d also, by way of radioed instruction, used the manualshift setting, albeit limited to first gear, to allow the machine’s computer brain to crawl us down rocky declines without setting a wheel wrong.
Before writing this account, I reread my Postmedia colleague Jil McIntosh’s review of the 2016 Mercedes-Benz G-Class — one in which she took to task the vehicle’s “brick-on-wheels” comfort level. Somewhat cheekily, as Ms. Mac is wont to do anyway, she wrote this in the What Would I Change section: “Other than the seating, steering and suspension, nothing.”
Having driven many a G-Class on paved highways and city streets, I can’t disagree with that sentiment.
However, after my day in the woods with a G550, I now see the G-Class in an entirely different light.
Of course, that’s probably my reptilian brain talking.