Merc’s iconic G-Wagon bad t

ONE OF A KIND: CHUCK NORRIS WOULD CHOOSE

n a world filled with snowflakes and selective political correctness, Mercedes-AMG’s G63 flies in the face of all that is civil and that is why I dig it so much. It is a very necessary guilty pleasure to keep one from believing that the world has finally gone completely mad in its bid to please everybody.

Mercedes-AMG are not afraid of putting high performance engines in vehicles that you would think don’t really need that amount of go. They watch the market and listen to their customers and this simple business strategy results in ever iconic and cool vehicles, like the G63 to be parked in your garage in return for R2 761 100 of your cash. Yup, this is a “I want it because I want it” kind of vehicle.

As this is a high performance road test, I am going to stick with the technical stuff and the numbers mostly.

Now before you say there is more to a car than just numbers (and you are right), there is. I do think though, one thing all the true petrolheads want to know: how fast is it?

editor Jaco van der Merwe will also be driving a G63 over the Easter Weekend and he will fill you in on the lifestyle aspects of driving a vehicle in a family kind of way. But this AMG can only be considered as bad to the bone and is probably the vehicle Chuck Norris would use if he ever decided to tackle his fear and go play golf in Benoni.

The G63 nameplate might be 40 years old now, but the latest iteration of this icon features only the best technology and performance in its class, and is 100% ready to do battle in the 21st century, without losing any of its go-anywhere capability.

One grumpy sounding AMG 4.0-litre V8 biturbo engine replaces the previous 5.5-litre V8 biturbo and this means you have a proper 430kW of power and 850Nm of torque on tap. The two twin scroll turbochargers are not positioned on the outside of the cylinder banks, but inside the cylinder “V” for improved efficiency. Making sure that the engine can handle the power and torque there have been changes that consist of modified pistons, optimised intercooling and extensive software upgrades.

Spray-guided direct petrol injection with piezo injectors, the all-aluminium crankcase, the four-valve per cylinder design with camshaft adjustment, air-water intercooling, alternator management, the Eco start/ stop function and the gliding mode have all been retained.

I truly doubt that you would consider a G63 if saving fuel was foremost on your mind. But to make you feel fractionally better and so as not to fight your treehugging neighbours each time you fire up this machine, you can tell them this AMG is equipped with a cylinder management system. What this means is that under partial throttle load, cylinders two, three, five and eight are deactivated, which helps with fuel consumption.

And by help, I mean you are still not going to get much under 17.5-litres per 100km on an average day in the real world. But what did you expect? This is a 2 560kg high performance vehicle that is shaped like a block of flats and shoved along by 430kW.

Selecting Sport+ mode and allowing the G 63 with its AMG SpeedShift TCT 9G transmission to do all the hard work, I managed to record a seriously fast, and better than claimed 0 to 100 km/h time of 4.38 seconds (4.5 seconds claimed).

Allow that to sink in for a bit and before you think you can bully this brute with your hot hatch or sports car, know that I got 4.40 seconds for BMW M2 Competition when I tested it earlier this year. The urge doesn’t stop there either, the quarter mile is crossed at 12.85 seconds, the half mile at 213km/h and the 1km mark at 223 km/h. What this means, if you have not ticked the optional AMG Driver’s Package box, is that you would hit the 220km/h electronic speed limiter before covering a mere 1km of tar.

My test car had the pack fitted and this allowed the fun to stop at exactly 240km/h on the speedo, translating into a 236km/h true top speed. Making this a fussfree experience on the road is the standard-specification AMG Performance 4Matic all-wheel drive that now features a sportier, rear-biased torque distribution with a front/rear split of 40 to 60%.

The G63 felt a whole lot smaller and lighter than it actually is out on the road, and it was only when I tried to push it around like a hot hatch that I could feel the weight. The damping on each wheel is electronically adjusted via the standard fitment AMG Ride Control suspension. This means whether on road or off, you will find a suspension setting that best suits your needs and the driving situation at that moment.

I haven’t gone into any of the impressive off-road stuff the G 63 features because Jaco will bring this to you, as he and his family love getting out into the bush on weekends.

The interior on the G63 has been completely revamped, while still maintaining many traditional touches familiar to G-Class fans. The highlight though is the new fully digital 12.3 inch Widescreen Cockpit found in other top Mercedes-Benz models.