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If you’ve ever taken a good long look at the Mercedes-Benz G-Class and wondered just how tough the leather-lined SUVs are compared to their military-grade counterparts, Inside Line has the answer for you. Corespondent Alistair Weaver joined up with a Mercedes-Benz convoy in a G of his own as the company took off across Australia’s infamous stock route. The trail is little more than a dusty path scrawled across the outback. Weaver braved vicious washboard roads, insects, snakes, dead camels and heinous heat to make the trek. How did his G Wagen handle the rough roads and deep sands? Let’s just say there were a few issues.

For starters, the washboard dirt tracks made short work of the AMG’s Bilstein rear shocks, forcing mechanics to pull the pieces altogether for one short stint before replacements could be flown in. Likewise, the spare tire carrier and both side-view mirrors suffered cracks along the way. Not surprisingly, the military-spec edition suffered no ills over the course of the trek. Hit the jump to check out the video for yourself.

If that’s not enough fun in the Australian sun for you, click back and take a look at Motor Trend’s trek across the continent in a Subaru Outback.

Continue reading Traveling across Australia’s Outback by Mercedes-Benz G-Class

Traveling across Australia’s Outback by Mercedes-Benz G-Class originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 28 Dec 2011 19:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve got to hand it to Mercedes-Benz. The Australian arm of the German automaker was so convinced that its iconic G-Wagen is one of the world’s most capable off-road vehicles, it decided to stage a demonstration run that would have seven of its boxy SUVs traveling from Halls Creek in Western Australia to Wiluna – a distance of 1,150 miles.

As it turned out, the distance, though definitely a long way to go in the wild’s of Australia in just 14 days, wasn’t the real issue encountered by the intrepid group of drivers. You see, the trip was organized along the historic Canning Stock Route, which was created at the beginning of the 20th Century as a way to get cattle from remote ranches in Kimberly to Perth, where it could then be sold.

Suffice it to say that driving cattle along the Canning Stock Route was a treacherous undertaking, and deaths were not uncommon. Today, the Route is considered one of the world’s greatest adventures and can only be tackled by serious four-wheel-drive machinery. Like the Mercedes-Benz G-Wagen, right?

Well, sorta. As MB Australia found out the hard way, no amount of planning can guarantee a successful journey, as six out of its seven G-Wagons have been crippled by broken rear shock absorbers seven days into the drive. The lone undamaged vehicle is actually a specially modified military-spec vehicle called the G-Professional that the German automaker is considering importing into Australia… might not be a bad idea, eh?

For their part, MB’s reps are taking the damage in stride. While all machines remained drivable (of course, that term just means the machine is capable of moving under its own power…), new shocks were flown in on chartered airplanes at significant cost. Sounds like there’s absolutely no way in the Australian Outback Hell that this demonstration drive will end up a failure.

Australian Outback cripples fleet of Mercedes G-Wagens during PR event originally appeared on Autoblog 5.0 on Mon, 08 Aug 2011 15:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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At the 2011 New York Auto Show, we asked Dominic Infante, Subaru’s U.S. product manager, about the XV Concept revealed at the Shanghai Motor Show. “It’s probably not for us,” he said, “but we’re looking at it. And if it did come, it probably wouldn’t be called Outback Sport.”

That’s because the Outback Sport is an anomaly in Subaru’s U.S. line-up that the brand’s marketing arm would like to correct – an Outback in name only, it is actually based on the Impreza platform. But it sells so well, Infante says, “that the sales guys don’t want them to change anything. They’re like, ‘Don’t mess it up.’”

What do you think? Should Subaru bring a production version of the XV to the States, or is it too much like the Outback Sport to matter? Make yourself heard in our poll below.

View Poll

New York 2011: Subaru looking at XV Concept for US, but wouldn’t be called Outback Sport originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 21 Apr 2011 15:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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