2025 Mercedes-Benz G-Class Road Test and Review

2025 Mercedes-Benz G 63 AMG ・ Photo by Brady Holt

America had the Hummer. Britain has the Land Rover Defender. Japan has the Toyota Land Cruiser. And Germany has the Mercedes-Benz Geländewagen – also known as the G-Wagen and officially sold as the G-Class. 

These are all military-grade vehicles that got adapted into improbable luxury rides. And the G-Wagen is the fanciest, most expensive one of them all. 

The newly updated 2025 Mercedes-Benz G-Class is an upright, all-business box that stands out from the brand’s sleekly modern crossovers. And at $148,250, the G-Class has a higher starting price than any other Mercedes model line. 

This year brings new and updated engines, including the first fully electric G-Wagen, plus styling tweaks and an upgraded infotainment system. We just spent a week testing the V8-powered G 63 AMG ($186,100 to start, $219,300 as tested) to see what it’s like to live with this unique SUV. Keep reading as we walk you through the pros and cons and this year’s changes, so you can decide if this is the right flagship luxury SUV for you. 

Styled Like It’s 1979

The G-Class has gotten some changes over the years. This year brought a new grille and bumper. And as recently as 2018, nearly all the body panels were changed out. But the square shape, round headlights, protruding fenders, and rear-mounted spare tire are straight off the 1979 Geländewagen. A 2025 G-Class isn’t merely an homage to the original – it just hasn’t changed. 

Now, you wouldn’t have found our test vehicle’s Hyper Blue paint ($6,500 extra) or 22-inch wheels ($4,350) on an early G-Wagen. It didn’t really begin evolving into a fashionable luxury car until the 1990s. But from the big turn signals up on the front fenders, to the straight lines of black trim on the doors, to the standard brush guard that protects the front bumper, this is a utility vehicle. It’s a showpiece precisely for its lack of typical contemporary showiness. The only obvious way to tell an old G-Class from a recent model is the LED ring that has outlined each circular headlamp in the past few years. 

Note that while the G-Class is a flagship model, it’s not a full-size SUV. It’s tall, but at only 190 inches long, it slots between the compact Mercedes GLC (186 inches) and mid-size GLE (194 inches) – to say nothing of the full-size GLS (205 inches). The G-Class is taller than any of them, though. This is good news if you want top-of-the-line presence with less bulk than a Cadillac Escalade. Though as we’ll discuss later, it also means less space inside.

2025 Mercedes-Benz G 63 AMG ・ Photo by Brady Holt

Modern Underneath

For years, the G-Wagen was as utilitarian to drive as its looks suggested. And even as Mercedes started shoehorning its finest luxury-car engines into the G-Class, it had the rudimentary suspension of an old-fashioned truck. 

But since 2018, this archaic-looking SUV has become a lot more contemporary underneath. That’s when Mercedes replaced its solid front axle with an independent suspension for a smoother ride, and introduced rack-and-pinion steering instead of old-fashioned recirculating-ball steering. Other changes included a wider body for greater stability, a more rigid body construction, and more lightweight materials. 

The result is that the 2025 G-Class drives like a modern SUV. We don’t mean it has the best ride and handling of any luxury SUV; a Land Rover Range Rover or BMW X7 would be smoother yet more agile, to say nothing of a performance-focused model like the Porsche Cayenne. But the G-Wagen has become credible. You can fall for its charm without being beaten up by it. The 2025 G-Class also includes modern driver aids like adaptive cruise control and lane-keeping steering assistance. 

Now, the ride is jiggly at low speeds, and you wouldn’t chuck the G-Class into a tight high-speed curve. But the steering is easy and natural, and the ride is neither noisy nor bouncy. When you wish to just relax and get around, you can forget you’re driving something unusual.

2025 Mercedes-Benz G 63 AMG ・ Photo by Brady Holt

Still a Truck

Geländewagen translates literally to “terrain vehicle,” meaning the posh G-Class is an off-roader. And the modern iteration hasn’t lost that. 

It still rides on a truck-like body-on-frame platform, rather than a unibody (with the chassis and body integrated into a single unit). It includes four-wheel drive with low range; locking front, rear, and center differentials; three speeds of crawl control; and a solid rear axle. It has 9.5 inches of ground clearance and can ford 27.5 inches of standing water. You can select Sand, Trail, and Rock off-road driving modes, but unlike a modern Range Rover, the G-Class’s off-road performance isn’t based on software trickery or spiffy air suspensions that lift the body up over obstacles. It’s old-fashioned mechanical hardiness. 

Given that, the G-Class’s passable on-road driving manners are that much more impressive. It’s a civilized everyday vehicle with crazy capability when the going gets rough.  

2025 Mercedes-Benz G 63 AMG ・ Photo by Brady Holt

It’s a Fast Truck

It’s fortunate that the G-Class has gotten smoother and more stable on pavement, because it has a ton of power. This is a fast truck. 

This year, the base G 550 swaps last year’s 4.0-liter V8 for a 3.0-liter inline six that’s similarly quick and powerful – yet much less thirsty. Between the lower cylinder count and new mild-hybrid electric assistance, the 2025 G 550 improves from a dismal EPA-estimated 14 mpg to a downright reasonable 18 mpg. And all the while, this anti-aerodynamic box can still zip to 60 mph in 5.3 seconds. That’s because between turbocharging and supercharging, it makes 443 horsepower and 413 lb-ft of torque. 

If you still want eight cylinders, don’t worry. You can still get the 4.0-liter V8 in the G 63 AMG like our test vehicle. In this case, it’s boosted to 577 hp and 627 lb-ft of torque – good for a sonorous 4.2-second sprint to 60 mph. The quad exhaust pipes stick out of the G-Wagen’s side, just before the rear wheel, to make sure you don’t miss the burble. The EPA projects 15 mpg in mixed driving (up 1 mpg from last year, thanks to the AMG’s own new mild-hybrid assistance). We averaged 18 mpg in mostly highway driving. 

2025 Mercedes-Benz G 63 AMG ・ Photo by Brady Holt

The New Electric Option

For maximum efficiency, you want the new “G 580 with EQ Technology.” That’s the long name for a fully electric Geländewagen. With 579 hp and 859 lb-ft of torque, this EV reaches 60 mph in 4.6 seconds yet gets the energy equivalent of 62 mpg. 

Neither the G 580’s 239-mile range nor its 0-60 sprint is remarkable for a high-end EV (it starts at $161,500). But when you’re driving your G-Wagen around town and can charge up at home, you never release tailpipe emissions and never need to stop at a gas station. This electric model is also the G-Class that serves as Leo XIV’s Popemobile. 

2025 Mercedes-Benz G 580 with EQ Technology ・ Photo by Mercedes-Benz

Modern Interior With Classic Touches

As the G-Class evolved from a military vehicle into a civilian limo, its interior became a hodgepodge of original parts and those sourced from Mercedes’s luxury models. These days, it’s a cohesive mix of high-quality, high-tech pieces shaped artfully around the G-Wagen’s historically upright dashboard. 

With the SUV’s near-vertical windshield and slim dashboard, the G-Class’s dash is more like a Jeep Wrangler’s than a typical Benz. But it’s a Wrangler wrapped in sumptuous leather, aluminum, and carbon fiber. Even the dashboard’s familiar grab handle is trimmed in stitched leather. Its tech has caught up with other Mercedes models, too; this year’s G-Class now has the automaker’s latest infotainment software on its 12.3-inch infotainment touchscreen, which shares a single panel with a 12-inch digital gauge cluster (with a variety of gauge styles to choose among). Mercedes’s infotainment system isn’t always the easiest to use, but the graphics look nice. Plus, the G-Class retains many physical buttons and knobs for common tasks.  

One potentially polarizing piece of old-school flavor remains. Other high-end Mercedes SUVs offer “soft close” doors that pull themselves quietly shut if they weren’t slammed quite hard enough. The G-Class is the opposite. Diehards love its hard-slamming doors so much, Mercedes kept the original 1979 mechanism. Mercedes calls it “vault-like.” To us, closing the door sounded like smashing a piece of hard plastic. New this year, Mercedes did add keyless-entry functionality to the otherwise traditional door handles. 

2025 Mercedes-Benz G 63 AMG ・ Photo by Brady Holt

First-Class Front Seats

Until 2018, the G-Class did no better than wrapping its 1979-grade seats in fancy leather. Car and Driver magazine once described this Benz's front seats as “‘something to sit on,’ the way an overturned bucket or a knee-high rock will do when the only alternative is standing.” Today, they’re every bit the seats of a luxury car – wider, better shaped, and equipped with heating, ventilation, massaging (new this year), and even bolsters that automatically expand to hold you in place as you go around a curve. 

The second row is comfortably shaped and richly upholstered, too. But remember, we mentioned that the G-Class isn’t a full-size SUV. Rear legroom is just OK. Adults can fit, but they won’t stretch out. And no third-row seat is available. The VIP seating in the G-Wagen is in the front seats, not in the back like most luxury four-doors at this price point. And it’s not the world’s best family SUV. 

2025 Mercedes-Benz G 63 AMG ・ Photo by Brady Holt

Tall Cargo Hold

The G-Class may not be an extra-long SUV, but it is tall. That means if you pack your cargo the right way, you can fit a lot of stuff inside. By the numbers, it has 38 cubic feet of cargo space behind the rear seat – more than a mid-size Mercedes GLE. However, this space is pretty vertical. The G-Wagen is a tall, narrow vehicle, leaving less space to spread out your stuff on the floor. The swing-out cargo door is also inconvenient in tight spaces, and it’s manually operated rather than powered like most luxury SUVs’ liftgates. 

The G-Class’s rear seat folds down in two steps, with the cushion tipping forward before the seatback can drop down. The folded rear seat is up on a ledge several inches above the cargo floor, so you don’t get a flat surface. Total cargo volume measures 69 cubic feet – a little bit less than the GLE. This isn’t a tiny cargo hold, but you can’t take four friends camping and effortlessly toss everyone’s gear in the back. You can tow a trailer weighing up to 7,716 pounds, more than most SUVs. 

2025 Mercedes-Benz G 63 AMG ・ Photo by Brady Holt

G-Class Competitors

Among top-tier luxury SUVs, the G-Class faces a mix of full-size flagships and smaller, more performance-focused models. Compared with such conventional big SUVs as the Cadillac Escalade and Lincoln Navigator, the G-Class is less spacious and less conventionally coddling. It costs more, too. But it’s faster, less bulky, and more capable off-road. And something like a Porsche Cayenne is built to tackle racetracks rather than the G-Wagen’s mountainsides, even if both SUVs are most likely to spend their time on public streets. 

The Land Rover Range Rover comes closest to the G-Class’s niche appeal of an ultra-premium off-road machine – once again, for less money. But the Range Rover still looks, feels, and drives like a modern luxury SUV rather than a modernized relic. It’s more about smooth, quiet comfort than the Benz’s brute force. Land Rover also sells the Defender, which is sized and shaped more like the G-Class for a fraction of the price ($56,900 to start). It’s great to drive, but it loses the G-Wagen’s extra-sumptuous interior surfaces – and the exclusivity that the Benz's high price provides. 

The new EQ electric model, meanwhile, faces off-road EVs that include the Rivian R1S and GMC Hummer SUV. These trucks have much longer ranges, accelerate more quickly, and cost much less than the G 580. You’d choose the Mercedes if you’re attached to its exclusive character and style, spec sheet or not. 

2022 Land Rover Range Rover P400 SE ・ Photo by Brady Holt

If You Want It, You’ll Like It

For many prospective G-Class customers, it’ll just take a quick look to know if it interests you or not. It’s either a bold breath of fresh air against ordinary SUVs and crossovers, or it’s a blocky old brute. 

The good news is that it has evolved into a credible luxury vehicle. The 2018 model ushered in a new era of ride, handling, seat comfort, and interior decor. The latest 2025 update improved fuel consumption (including the new electric option), upgraded the infotainment, and added more of the amenities people expect from a modern six-figure SUV. All the while, it still has off-road character backed up with genuine capability. 

If you’re not a fan of the G-Class aesthetic, you’ll be happier in a more conventional competitor. But if you like how it looks, Mercedes continues to whittle away at reasons you might change your mind. Just keep an eye on whether you have enough space in the backseat and how hard you’re willing to slam your door. 

2025 Mercedes-Benz G 63 AMG ・ Photo by Brady Holt