The GCC accounts for some 25 per cent of total worldwide G-Class sales

Age. It’s a real bastard of a thing. God-knows how many countless hours we spend of our lifetime trying to run away from it, trying to ignore it, put it to one side, hide it in the closet, defeat it.

Regret, mid-life crisis, immobility, sickness, insanity; they’re all things associated with age. No one wants to be old. Young is better; young always wins. Young is fresh, new, more beautiful, more interesting and more alive. We always want a new car, a younger partner, a new house, more fashionable clothes, new gadgets. Except that in the end, becoming old is inevitable.

Age. It’s something the Mercedes G-Wagen seems to have coolly sidestepped. You look at it, and you realise it has none of the attributes associated with being young or old. From whatever angle you choose to ogle it, its square proportions couldn’t be described as belonging to any decade, past or future; it’s not new or dated; it’s not overly pretty. Neither is it ugly. It just is.

And what it is, a bit unbelievably, is 30 years old. There, I’ve put an age to it. It’s older than me, younger than editor Bassam and was born in 1979. It’s Mercedes’ longest-serving passenger car series (which I suppose makes it sound old), and some 200,000 G-Wagens have been sold so far. As something to match the G-Class’s longevity and acquired respect, I can think of only the quirky 911 (engine in the rear) and the Land Rover Defender.

In those three decades a special G-Class was made for the Pope, it has been used as an emergency services vehicle, has won the Paris-Dakar rally and has featured in comics. Several tuned versions have popped up over the years, including a 700bhp Brabus, and to mark its 30th anniversary, Mercedes Middle East & Levante will be introducing a limited edition model at the Dubai motorshow in December.

So this trip, to the mountains of Hatta on the border with Oman, is in essence, our homage to the G-Class – a car that’s beaten time itself and has received a bit of a cult following in the process. And by quite some margin, nowhere in the world has the G-Wagen received more attention than in the Middle East.

The statistics are impressive. We account for some 25 per cent of total worldwide G-Class sales, and while a European dealer may sell three G-Wagens per month, one in the UAE or Saudi Arabia could have 50 on its order books. All of them would be G55s, too; no one wants to be seen in a lesser car. Of those 50, one or two may be G500s, but as any Mercedes salesman will tell you, they always come back to exchange it for a 55.

Rather ominously, the one we’ve borrowed belongs to the owner of a Mercedes dealership in Dubai. But although I’d usually be apprehensive at this point, I reckon that tackling the kind of terrain you find in Hatta isn’t going to give the G-Wagen too many problems.

‘Have you ever driven one?’ asked editor Bassam with raised eyebrows a few days earlier in a way that suggested I didn’t know what I was about to drive.

‘No, why?’

‘It’s a brick.’

Well, I wasn’t expecting a sports car, but if there was ever going to be any journalistic objectivity as I pressed the hard metallic door button and stepped inside, I suppose it evaporated into the baking middle eastern air a long time ago.

I’ll decide just how brick-like it is later, but at the moment, set against the dark skies and hard-edged rocks of the Omani border, the utilitarian-but-composed look of the G55 makes it blend perfectly with its serene surrounding.

As with every G-Class, it is the small, peculiar details that set it apart from any other SUV. The boxy looks are the largest, most obvious trait, designed to be uncomplicated, so that body parts could be easily replaced in countries without modern metalworking machinery. But it’s things like the exposed door hinges and the bulky bonnet that sits on top of the bodywork instead of being a part of it. Then you have the indicators, which protrude from the front corners and look like mini-lighthouses from behind the wheel, but are actually a good reference point for the ends of the car. It’s only the shiny 19in AMG alloy wheels that give the age game away and let others know this G-Wagen was only built recently.

Other hints at the G-Wagen’s rugged capability come from the thin doors, which are upholstered with high quality leather, but produce an almighty clunk as metal meets metal and the lock hooks the door into place. It’s also complemented by the interior’s hard surfaces and pointy edges. Yet, the fit and finish is of the standard you’d expect from a $ 100k Mercedes. I especially like the Alcantara roof lining.

Every year, the interior and exterior is slightly updated. Facelifts come only every three years, and even then, they’re nothing major. But it’s enough for devout Wagen-holics to return for the updated car every year. Most go for the same colour – usually white – with every new car, and buyers are mostly Arab nationals.

The G-Class mania started 10 years ago, when the G55 was first introduced to the region. Demand amounted to a few cars per year, but when the ruling royal families in the GCC were seen driving around in it, sales went through the head gasket. Everyone wanted to associate themselves with the royal family, to uphold their status and to tower over every other person on the road. Orders for the G55 around the region haven’t subsided since. Gargash Enterprises, the distributor for Mercedes-Benz in Dubai, recently posted a sales slump of eight per cent and its models are now heavily discounted. Not the G-Class, though. This last year was a record year in terms of sales. Unnamed members of ruling families still place orders of over 20 units at a time and Prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Sultan Bin Rashed Al Nahyan, recently commissioned a 620bhp G55 from German tuning firm A.R.T. And then, of course, there’s Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Ruler of Dubai, who famously has several G55s, all with the numberplate ‘1’.

THE BEST WAY TO understand the G55’s appeal is to sit for a minute and absorb its otherness. Forget the modern steering wheel, AMG dials, the COMAND system and the luxurious seats. No modern add-on can conceal this car’s roots. I’ve certainly never been in an SUV that feels this indestructible.

‘Twist the key, prod the throttle... the whole body shakes from side to side’

And then you twist the key, at which point a very deep and loud supercharged 5.4-litre V8 fills its lungs and erupts into life, echoing into the distance. Prod the throttle and you begin to sense the power – the whole body shakes momentarily from side to side. It’s loud, really loud. There’s 507bhp lurking under today’s G55 – a long way from the 150bhp the first G-Class put out.

It plays the biggest part in the car’s appeal. Every millimetre of throttle travel sends more vibration through the floor along with a thunderstorm of noise and forward momentum. You can almost feel the power making its way from the engine, through the gearbox, into the axles and through the wheels. It doesn’t pin you into the seat (there’s no way anything weighing 2.5 tons will ever do that) but it does have a kick to it. In reality it sounds faster than it really is, especially when you have the echo bouncing off buildings and other cars. However, for something that looks like it has the drag coefficient of 0.99, performance is big enough to leave streams of dawdling traffic behind. They’ll know exactly how far down your right foot is as well, thanks to those gigantic SLR-style side pipes. It’s a bass note with a thrash of pistons on top, and it’s enough to give small children a fright. Very entertaining. It gives you that sensation that it’s always waiting for you to open up the taps, just so you can enjoy the noise. Not in the way a supercar eggs you on, but more in the way a clown would encourage you to squeeze his flower, so he can squirt water in your face and show you just how entertaining something so simple can be.

As a short lesson in physics will teach you, tall and narrow objects are awkward things that don’t require much force to sway off-balance. Not even the talented engineers of AMG can do anything to counteract the G-Wagen’s proportions. Coil springs and a front axle stabiliser are fitted to help on-road handling but there’s little grip to explore and the response from the front end to any movements stemming from your arms is slow. There’s a lot of play in the steering in the first quarter of lock, and beyond that, it feels like the wheels move a second after you’ve turned the wheel. The helm itself has a vague, rubber-like quality; so that the more you turn the tougher it gets to turn the steering wheel. And all the while the body rolls like a dog turning on its back when it wants you to stroke its tummy. Try to speed up and the tyres begin to squeal. The electronic stability program cuts the power instantly.

The ride isn’t comfortable, either. At every bump or hole in the road the wheels crash violently, almost stomping on the tarmac on the rebound, sending a huge jolt through the seat. The result is that you are bobbing up and down every 20 metres or so. It never fully settles. The brakes don’t instil much faith either, with no affect in the first half of pedal travel and producing limited deceleration in the second. It’s a long, squishy pedal.

In other words, forget the AMG badge; with the G55, the car’s ability to defeat the road it encounters comes before the needs of driver or passenger.
A brick? Certainly feels that way on the road.

Truth is that the G-Wagen’s potential lies in the place it was originally designed for: off the beaten track and the rough ground that most humans daren’t go. It was, after all, initially intended as a military off-roader. The Shah of Iran – a Mercedes-Benz shareholder – ordered 20,000 units. The post-revolution government cancelled the contract before production could get underway, but thankfully for Mercedes and its Austrian builders, the German, Norwegian, Argentinean and Swiss armies later placed large orders. Today, many governments worldwide use the ‘G’ in one shape or another.

The recipe for the civilian cars was and still is the same, though: a versatile, cross-country off-roader that’s capable of traversing almost any ground in freezing cold or in sweltering heat. Geländewagen, to give it its full name, is loosely translated as ‘cross-country vehicle’. If we were really going to do justice to the G-Wagen, we certainly wouldn’t take it to a tourist hot spot like Hatta…

Seeing as we’re here, though, it’s worth trying it out. Select Neutral and press the three buttons at the top of the centre console that lock the front, centre and rear differentials. The design of the buttons themselves looks at least 10 years old and is slightly incongruent with the modern interior, but it’s another small quirk that makes the G-Wagen that bit more genuine. It’s pleasing not having to look into a digital screen to try and find a ‘Vehicle Settings’ option.

‘The ’Wagen’s potential lies off the beaten track - on the rough ground’

Essentially, it’s these 100 per cent locking diffs that make the G-Class a go-anywhere vehicle. Strictly speaking, they’re not necessary on the off-road tracks that wind their way between the endless hills of this part of the UAE – apart from a few rocks and inclines, it’s flat and featureless. Here, the G55’s 516lb ft of torque and 507bhp is more than enough to get you to the other side. Mine is a short trip, not extensive enough to discover the Geländewagen to its full, but still, as automotive first encounters go, the G-Wagen is a charming one. In a Mercedes-Benz world, where every single electric window button and indicator stalk has been engineered until it’s just right, the G-Class is a refreshing experience. Its indicator stalk is a large, wonky chunk of plastic that feels like it was put in place the day before, and the electric window button doesn’t allow you to roll up the window automatically – unusual in a top-of-the-range Mercedes, to say the least. The window itself wobbles at over 80kph when it’s part way down.

Whether it’s on the road or off it, the feeling you get every time you start, stop and turn in the G-Wagen is that underneath you lies some very heavy machinery, filled with very heavy parts. Yet it never feels crude. It makes me wonder how much the G-Class has changed. Did the first G-Wagen behave like this? Was it this refined?

The Geländewagen is to Mercedes what Alfa Romeo is to the Italian automotive industry: a car that you not only own, but a car you get to truly enjoy. It looks as striking in a slum as it does parked next to a five-star hotel, as noticeable filled up to its windows with mud as it does with polish on its panels. That’s why it has changed so little in 30 years.

There were rumours swirling a while ago that the G-Wagen would be discontinued after such a long period of production. But somehow, I don’t think that’s going to happen any time soon…

	G55 AMG
Engine	V8, supercharged
Location	Front, longitudinal
Displacement	5439cc
Max power	507bhp @ 6100rpm
Max torque	516lb ft @ 2750-4000rpm
Transmission	Five-speed automatic, four-wheel drive with front, centre and rear 100 per cent locking differentials
Weight (kerb)	2550kg
Power-to-weight	199bhp/ton
0-100kph	5.5sec
Top speed	210kph (electronically limited)
Basic price	$ 109,000
EVO Rating	3.5 stars