2019 Mercedes Benz G550: You will get noticed!
For a starting price of $124,000 (you read that right, six figures), the vehicle you drive should meet certain requirements. So depending on your perspective, the 2019 Mercedes Benz G550, the flagship spaceship-sized king-and-queen-of-the-road of the G-series SUVs for the brand, delivers.
U.S. News and World Report notes the obvious about the G550 when it comes to the downsides of buying the vehicle, citing how it is “a true gas guzzler” and has a “sky-high price tag”. No shirt. But other than that, Mrs. Kennedy, they did like the Dallas parade in which this beauty of the beasts was featured, especially its off-road capability and its all-around luxury.
One note of caution: this vehicle is indeed tall and wide, as in mega muy grande, so make sure have more than plenty of room to park it wherever you go. The wheelbase alone is almost nine and a half feet. Width, without mirrors, is over six feet. And it is six and a half feet tall, but trust me, it’s taller once you put on all the special tires and stuff. Okay, you will need to have a nice garage and a valet, no two ways about it, but be very careful if you are parking it in an underground garage. Once they seeing you driving this car, they will come after you for any damages caused by all that largess.
It’s a Mercedes, so of course, it is gushing with luxury and refinement, even when it is among the other standout royalty at poly pony club. It’s all new this year, and that means, well, more luxury AND more performance: you will get (and you will need) a 4.0-liter V8 twin-turbo engine that kicks out 416 horsepower and 450 pound-feet of torque. That’s a lot of power you will need given that this beauty weighs almost three tons, give or take a couple hundred pounds US. This is the vehicle the Germans used to drive during ‘The War’, and this year’s model emulates the Geländewagens of yesteryear, as Car and Driver sees it.
As for luxury, gosh, where do you start and where do you stop? My big concern, however, was this: who would want to take this knockout through the mud? Yes, that’s what it’s designed to do and it does it swimmingly, but I’d hate to be the one to clean it….
My kitschy sense of humor and style took me straight to The Munsters, that 1960s TV show with Herman, Lily, Grampa, Marilyn (considered to be the ugly one) and Eddie Munster. They drove a car that was too cool for everyone else, and this year’s G550 reminded me of something Herman Munster would drive. I felt so cool and tall in the saddle while I was driving it. Heck, I even had a great selection of surf guitar music for the ride, to include a surf rock version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow by one of my new favorite surf bands, The Surf Dawgs. How gay and groovy is that?
My sense is (because I really, honestly, don’t know) that if you buy Mercedes, you are a Mercedes kind of sophisti-cat and you have a strong sense of loyalty to the brand. If so, this is your vehicle. If, however, you have the money or the financing and want opulence and largess but aren’t geared one way or another, you may also want to check out something less expensive: like the Mercedes GLS series, which starts in the low $70Ks. U.S. News and World Report likes the GLS even more than the G series, mostly because it is not as expensive and has better fuel economy, but is complimentary of both, so as Willie Nelson sang, ‘If You’ve Got The Money, Honey….’
As 2019 winds down, there may still be some models on the lot that were ordered but never purchased and are still languishing on dealer books. Actually, many of you know how to work with auto brokers. Now is good time to give one a call.
She may have just what you need to be the reigning Lily Munster of the drag race scene come 2020.
