Mercedes-Benz G-Class Gets Special Edition to Celebrate Its Roots
Dubbed the “Stronger Than the 1980s” edition, it’s inspired by the one-off retro G-wagen that Mercedes built to celebrate the 500,000th one built.By Brendan McAleerPublished: Apr 16, 2025
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- A new special edition is paying tribute to the roots of the Mercedes-Benz G-class.
- Dubbed the “Stronger Than The 1980s” edition, it gets most of the features of the one-off retro G-wagen Mercedes built to celebrate the 500,000th one built.
- It’s based on the 2025 G550, and 460 examples will be made—a nod to the original W460 chassis.
Part of the charm of the Mercedes G-class is that it is a brand-new car with all modern conveniences and technology, and at the same time, very old-fashioned. It is boxy but good, with traditional body-on-frame construction. The Austrian factory in which it is built has but a single robot on the assembly line, and it sits in the shadow of Schöckl mountain, against which every generation of G has been tested since the days Mercedes still called it the Geländewagen. Now, a new version of the G-class gets even older.
A new special edition called the “Stronger Than the 1980s” pays homage to the first G-wagens to crawl over the broken, rocky terrain of Schöckl, complete with throwback colors and details. The very first Gs available to civilians started selling in 1979, but it wasn’t until the 1980s that the vehicle fully established its hip-to-be-square character.
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This isn’t the first time Mercedes has paid tribute to the era of big shoulder pads and even bigger hair. As a celebration of building the 500,000th G-wagen, it built a one-off modern interpretation of the 1986 280GE, finished in Agave Green with black lower bodywork and retro touches like amber turn signals. Based on the previous G-class, this wasn’t intended to be a production version for sale, but rather a celebration.
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However, there clearly seems to have been some petitioning from G-class fans to actually put the concept in showrooms. Mercedes-Benz says it will be building 460 examples (the first-generation G is the W460 model) of the Stronger Than the 1980s edition, each based on the 2025 G550.
Three colors will be available: Agave Green again, cream, and a sandy beige. The Gs also get the amber indicator lights like the one-off celebration model, as well as the black-painted trim elements and retro-look badges. Puddle lights will also display “G–Stronger Than Time” on the ground, and you, of course, get the usual numbered badges of a limited-series run.
Considering how little off-roading something like a G63 actually does, the Stronger Than the 1980s edition feels like a return to form for the G. No silly 20-plus-inch wheels with low-profile tires, just workaday five-spoke 18-inchers and mud flaps. The G550’s V-8 is not short on power, but this G feels built less for Rodeo Drive than roaming around on some hilly ranchland. Most of the time, when you actually run into a G-class on the back-woods trails, it’s a G550 owner.
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The lack of automation at the Graz factory, which is the G’s birthplace, lends itself to plenty of available customization, matched only by Mercedes’s Maybach brand. It’s nice to see the company having a little fun with its off-road icon, doing something entirely different than the over-the-top AMG models such as the 6×6. It’s funny that, despite the 1980s being held up on a pedestal as the era of excess, that decade inspired a more stripped-down, authentic version of the G-class character.
