Skip to main content

Take-anywhere luxury: Mansory’s G-Wagen Sahara Edition is dune-hopping prestige

It seems as though these days, the Arab states are where to go for anyone seeking to be among the most exclusive exotic supercars and the world’s finest luxury vehicles. Their cars may be extraordinarily fast and opulent, but there’s one catch: Sand.

It’s everywhere and it doesn’t play well with the most refined performance vehicles when it blankets the roads or vacuumed up by the car’s vents. Drivers of these cars find themselves stuck on paved roads that pale in scope compared to the vast, beautiful country with so much room for activities. Luckily, high-end car tuner Mansory has both sides covered with the Mansory G-Class Sahara Edition.

Mansory-G-Wagon-6
Nick Jaynes/Digital Trends

Debuting at the Geneva Auto Show, Mansory took a Mercedes-Benz G-Wagen and outfitted it with a redesigned carbon fiber body kit decked out in desert camouflage decals. The whole kit is 40 millimeters wider than the standard truck, and adds a modified off-road bumper to the front, which sports underride protection.

Bespoke headlights give the G-Model a distinct look, which are accented by recessed indicator lights that shine through nine pinhole openings. These are supported by the four roof-mounded spotlights over the windshield.

Mansory G-Class Sahara Edition
Image used with permission by copyright holder

It’s not all bodywork and light bars, the Sahara Edition also gets some tweaks in the power department as well. The  AMG-sourced 5.5-liter twin turbo V8 gets a handful of components swapped out with race-ready parts used instead. The pistons, connecting rods, big end bearings, crankshaft, crank, and cylinder head are replaced, as well as the exhaust system. All these result in a power increase from 536 horsepower to a whopping 828 hp.

The ruggedly refined outside is matched by the interior, with a redesigned dash and console area complimented by a marbled camouflage leather upholstery job. If that sounds more conservative than it should be, rest assured that each seat is embroidered with a falcon’s face and wing design.

Alexander Kalogianni
Alex K is an automotive writer based in New York. When not at his keyboard or behind the wheel of a car, Alex spends a lot of…
Plug-in hybrids are becoming more popular. Why? And will it continue?
Kia Niro EV Charging Port

There's a lot of talk about the idea that the growth in electric car sales has kind of slowed a little. It's not all that surprising -- EVs are still expensive, early adopters all have one by now, and they're still new enough to where there aren't too many ultra-affordable used EVs available. But plenty of people still want a greener vehicle, and that has given rise to an explosion in hybrid vehicle sales.

That's especially true of plug-in hybrid vehicles, which can be charged like an EV and driven in all-electric mode for short distances, and have a gas engine as a backup for longer distances or to be used in combination with electric mode for more efficient driving.

Read more
EV drivers are not going back to gas cars, global survey says
ev drivers are not going back to gas cars global survey says screenshot

Nearly all current owners of electric vehicles (EVs) are either satisfied or very satisfied with the experience, and 92% of them plan to buy another EV, according to a survey by the Global EV Drivers Alliance.

The survey of 23,000 EV drivers worldwide found that only 1% would return to a petrol or diesel car, while 4% would opt for a plug-in hybrid (PHEV) if they had to replace their car.

Read more
Trump team in sync with Tesla on ending crash-reporting requirements, report says
Beta of Tesla's FSD in a car.

The transition team of President-elect Donald Trump is planning to end existing car-crash reporting requirements to safety regulators, according to a Reuters report.

The report cites a document obtained by Reuters that lays out the transition team’s 100-day strategy for automotive policy. In the document, the team says the crash-reporting requirement leads to “excessive” data collection, Reuters says.

Read more