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G-Man
Date registered: Dec 1899
Location:
Vehicle(s):
| Re: What Inspired Your First Gwagen Purchase ?
Diesel, LWB, autotranny, seating for 9
Mercedes quality
Land rover "quality" and rustability
Jeep diminutiveness
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mortinson
Expert
Date registered: Apr 2006
Location: Madrid, España
Vehicle(s): '98 G300TD LWB, '98 E300TD Saloon
Posts: 1355
| RE: What Inspired Your First Gwagen Purchase ?
BartM - 7/7/2006 12:17 PM
BTW this is one of the very first G's if I interpret the VIN number correctly, it ends with 1009, which suggests to me it is the 1009th ever built. Or do I see that wrong?
You are entirely right: that is the 1009th Mercedes G-Wagen made. Puch Gs follow a separate sequence. |
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500
Date registered: Dec 1899
Location:
Vehicle(s):
| Re: What Inspired Your First Gwagen Purchase ?
Always appreciated the design. Saw them in Europe when I traveled and lived there in the late 70's/early 80's, with my family. Like some have said, Europa's price was not realistic, so I waited and low and behold I finally took delivery of a NA spec 02' in Nov of 2001. Mine was great, and no problems. Sold and awaiting my 07'. When something like the G is described as a "Classic" what else is there to ponder. So there you have it..! |
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nugat
Elite Veteran
Date registered: Jan 2007
Location: Warsaw, Poland
Vehicle(s): 280GE, 290GD, c303
Posts: 876
| RE: What Inspired Your First Gwagen Purchase ?
I am reviving this fantastic thread while reading everything back.
On January Friday 13th 2006 I received my Subaru Forester 2.5 turbo (230hp, 320Nm. 6 sec to 100 km\ 65 miles ) I drove it back to my country home in a very snowy cold night. The car performed fantastic. On the country gravel snowy/icy road I just felled out and could not get out. I called my neighbour. He came in one of his military contraptions with megawatts of light on the top. The extraction was tricky. I was in a melioration skid row and the other melioration on the other side. Plowed snowed fields everywhere (tanks hate them). He just came and pulled me out with his winch. It was like a "Close Encounters" scene. I asked him "what car is this?". "Mercedes G he said". Since then I knew I had to have one. I got a 280GE in February 2007, LWB, 9 seater, no rust. First thing I threw out LPG. Got it for 7,000 U$, 7,000U$ later it starts working like a new. 7,000$ next it will be new. |
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Indiana Drew
Expert
Date registered: Feb 2007
Location: Houston Tx
Vehicle(s): 2002 G500 LWB, 1980 280GE SWB (Sold), S500
Posts: 2223
| RE: What Inspired Your First Gwagen Purchase ?
mcshin - 6/8/2006 7:31 PM Just now realized you cant attatch pics on a quick reply.. :banghead: Nice wheels! Now I don't have to take a pic of mine! Lets see, my first true love was a classic green Range Rover, 1990 I think. It was a really great vehicle. Then a Discovery (sucked), ML320 (great car) and then 2002 and the MBUSA G500 came available (it was a good year prior for brokerage.) I still have fond memories of the old RR, but have not driven one in years or side by side with a G. Oh and the snot answer would be because I could ... LOL. I have not regretted my choice! 
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Ed Mclass
Expert
Date registered: Apr 2006
Location: Nashville, Tennessee
Vehicle(s): 1958 180a, 2010 GLK, 2000 G 500, 2005 SLK 350
Posts: 1215
| Re: What Inspired Your First Gwagen Purchase ?
One of my friends had one and he let me drive it back in 1991. I was hooked. This forum gave me hope! Then I found a 1986 280 GE in Saint Louis. The rest is history as they say. I'm on my third now. |
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folidol
Veteran
Date registered: Jul 2006
Location: NYC
Vehicle(s): Bombardier subway car
Posts: 151
| RE: What Inspired Your First Gwagen Purchase ?
MY BACKGROUND...
1. Swiss-immigrant grandfather was MB-obsessed car nut
2. Swiss-immigrant father was German-car obsessed car nut
3. Costa Rican-born son and grandson (me) grew up with these two guys
4. What else can you expect?
BUT...
5. Got my first 4x4 at age 26 or so, it was an used Nissan Patrol, which I kept for 6 years, until
6. Moved to New York to do grad school, Patrol had to go... and in NYC it didn't make sense to have a car anyway
IN ANY CASE...
7. Mercedes Gs are very common in Costa Rica, so there's a chance I will get one someday if I go back, but
8. Not a chance it will be a new one, since price tag starts around $135K. Even if I had the means, I don't think I would pay that amount (in 2007 dollars) for any car, no matter what car it is.
MY DREAM CARS in no particular order...
- A "worker" type G, short version, cabrio, diesel (does that exist or is in production? no idea)
- early 70s Range Rover
- 1970s BMW CSi 3.0
- late 60s or early 70s Porsche 911
- Audi A3
- Citroen DS-23
With this "wish list", I guess the Audi and the G are the easy ones.... if all this fails, I will look for an early 90s Land Cruiser 70-series and drive it for 2 million miles before anything breaks.
In the meantime, I will keep drooling around here.
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folidol
Veteran
Date registered: Jul 2006
Location: NYC
Vehicle(s): Bombardier subway car
Posts: 151
| RE: What Inspired Your First Gwagen Purchase ?
Sorry, to answer the question
WHAT INSPIRED YOUR FIRST GWAGEN PURCHASE?
My answer would be: FINALLY BEING ABLE TO.
It's an answer I hope I can give before I turn 40.
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hipine
Date registered: Jul 2006
Location: US, CO, Bailey
Vehicle(s): 460 1980 280GE w. 617A
| RE: What Inspired Your First Gwagen Purchase ?
You guys that were so insightful as to spot the G during it's inception and hook up with it then really have my admiration. In '79-'80 I wasn't of driving age yet (till '82) and it didn't matter because my mom was bringing up my sister and I on such a small ammount of money that we didn't think about a luxury like a owning a car. I had no clue that a G-wagen existed. Flash forward to poor boy makes good and rebels against the hand that feeds him. Working for General Motors in 1996 and pissed off that they wouldn't sell me that cool 3rd door on an extended cab pickup with an employee discount, I decided I would pay any price to own one of the last year for Land Rover Defender imports to the USA, a beautiful white '97 SW, the one that John Lee of Expedition Exchange now tools around in. That truck got me started on a short odysey of Land Rover ownership through Series, rangie, disco, etc. During this time I was also working in Mexico and remember seeing a G in the border line at San Ysidro one day. I wasn't impressed. Dark green with blacked out windows, all I could think was, "I wonder which rap star that is?" Then the fateful day...... Q says by E-mail, "Hey, I think I'm gonna buy this truck." And sends me this link (I can't BELIEVE this page is still on the net. I need to get it and all the pix for my own one of these days before I wake up and find it gone.): http://www.heronnet.com/lonestar-mbca/Erwin's%20G-Wagen.htm Upon visiting the web site I'm a little smitten by the wonderful story behind the vehicle, but not fully bitten until I see it in person. Check the engine bay....roll underneath.....sit in the driver's seat.....I CAN'T let him butcher this thing into some kind of rock buggy. It must be saved.....it must be MINE! It's affordable, spacious, spartan, unique, capable, adaptable, the total package that I could never quite seem to realize in my Land Rovers. And after swapping vehicles with Q for a couple weeks and then asking my wife if we should trade the then 3 year old Disco with 60k on the clock for the then 20 year old G with 220k, her only comment was, "Well, you know I really like the Disco, but it's obvious that as far as the right person having the right vehicle (Q the disco and me the G), I think you need to have that G." Being a tool and die maker and mechanical engineer I have a real soft spot in my heart for anything purpose built with an elegantly simplistic design that gets the most from the least. That's the place the G sings to. And just like that kid with the bell in the christmas story "the polar express", lots of my friends can't hear that song anymore, but I can still hear it today. Driving the G has also brought me lots of new friends all over the world, and in that way lead to such enrichment of my life in general, that it takes on a maybe slightly unnatural significance for me....or maybe it's "just a car". Thanks for the thread, Dutch. Stuff like this is why a whole group of nice men and women in Graz still have jobs hammering together a few civilian Gs, much as my cynicism didn't want to believe it could be so. Remeber this one? http://www.benzworld.org/forums/g-class/1210971-ring-ring-who-mercedes-4.html?highlight=letter A little water under the bridge in a couple years, Chrysler is being turned over to private investors, and the G lives on. There may yet be hope for the good and right of this automotive world! -Dave G. PS - Dutch, who's the guy with all the hair driving your car? 
Edited by hipine 6/19/2007 7:09 PM
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DUTCH
Administrator Doppelgänger
Date registered: Apr 2006
Location: US, GA, Atlanta
Vehicle(s): 2015 Audi Q7 3.0 TDI,2018 Sprinter
Posts: 9963
| RE: What Inspired Your First Gwagen Purchase ?
hipine - 6/19/2007 7:05 PM
Dutch, who's the guy with all the hair driving your car?
It's 24 yrs ago. Gimme a break!  |
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frank_be
Veteran
Date registered: Apr 2006
Location: Belgium
Vehicle(s): G350 Turbo
Posts: 148
| Re: What Inspired Your Gwagen Purchase ?
TWODOGS - 6/8/2006 7:57 PM years of landrover ownership , when I had a look at at G the quality won out & the difflocks ... Twodogs
Exactly the same here. When you technically compare a G to a LR the LR looks almost "niedlich"
A LR never again.
A G any day.
Greetings,
Frank |
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macjack
Date registered: Dec 1899
Location:
Vehicle(s):
| RE: What Inspired Your First Gwagen Purchase ?
Short version: wanted a diesel 4x4 that could run biodiesel or potentially straight veggie oil, wanted the build qality of the G, love the utility, and ease of driving both around town and deep into the Colorado mountains.
I have been an old vehicle nut for years, dabbling in a few Saab 99s and a Volvo P1800ES that I could do the work on myself. Then I finished graduate school and began to buy newer cars and had a 98 land cruiser, which was confidence inspiring in any conditions, but a bit bland. Fast forward to the insane Iraq invasion, levees in New Orleans breaking because we had "diverted funds" to Homeland security, and my wife and I got outraged at all the petroleum we were using.
We looked into things a bit more and discovered Biodiesel and decided to sell our gasoline vehicles (including an Audi A8, the Landcruiser, and an old VW Westy). We live in Colorado so wanted 4wd, but didn't want to drive a huge old pickup truck. A few years before I had seen a Gwagen driving around Boulder and got immediately curious, but like others found the price insanely out of my league.
Now that we were looking, I saw an 87 SWB 300GD on Ebay and tried to bid on it from a laptop and cellphone connection in my westy. I missed the end of the auction, but had gotten pretty interested by then. We couldn't find another one at the time so we bought a 1982 300D sedan and a 1978 Scout II diesel. The Scout was an NA engine that had a turbo added to it. At high elevations in Colorado we need the turbo, but when I found out about all the modifications that the turbo engines have in order to handle the added heat and stress of the turbocharging, I started to look into ways to swap out the engine on the Scout. I was so impressed with the OM617A in the 300D, bit heard of heavy modification to get it into the Scout engine bay.
Of course always calling was the G. It came with the 617, and many had successfully converted it to the 617A. So I decided to take a loss on the Scout (I had become quite fond of it), sell the 300D, and buy or convert to a turbo diesel G-wagen.
I found one that had been converted in California, though it had several issues to sort out.
Seven months and lots of dirty fingernails later, we have the G and most of the main issues worked out.
And we still have the 300D.
-macjack |
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autonovice
Elite Veteran
Date registered: Dec 2006
Location: New York City
Vehicle(s): '05 G55K, '92 350GDT
Posts: 684
| Re: What Inspired Your First Gwagen Purchase ?
Why are we continue to do these surveys? I hope someone can use the infos to write "The Complete History Of The Mercedes G-Class" in the near future ....
Anyway, I love it 'cause it's the ugliest thing out there .... so aquare! fast, great visibility, solid body and best of all .... all my chics dig it! w/ my AMG version, I can do 100mph and it feels like a car. This was my first and only new car I bought! |
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kiwi_g
Veteran
Date registered: May 2006
Location: New Zealand
Vehicle(s): 1986 300GD 1986 190E 2.3 16V
Posts: 133
| RE: What Inspired Your First Gwagen Purchase ?
well i knew of the existance of g wagens but didn´t know much about them
i started my 4x4 with a very old and srtuffed range rover that to be honest was a huge waste of money
then i bought an ex NZ army series 3 land rover V8 quite a nice toy but not as good off road as i would have liked apparently they put harder leaf springs in them so the axles wouldn twist as much sold that
and then bought another old range rover with an australian built 4.4 litre V8 in it
had that for a couple of years with lots of grand plans for it suspension lift diff locks big wheels the usual
when i saw a 1986 300gd for sale read up a bit about them and thought for the difference in value between what my range rover was worth and how much it would cost to modify the range rover to the same spec i thoght it would be worth a look
so i drove to his place and took the g wagen i had seen listed for a drive it was a 300gd 5 speed manual to be honest i liked some bits of it but the gearbox let it down then he showed me the wagen i currently own it has the 4 speed auto in it it was a totally different machine i love it to bits so much nicer to drive the gearbox works much better with the engine i was hooked so i traded the range rover with cash difference and i love my g
 (northerners bbq 2006.jpg)
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Container
Veteran
Date registered: Jul 2006
Location: Sweden
Vehicle(s): 1998 G500L, 1994 E36 AMG Coupé, 2007 E500T 4-matic
Posts: 114
| RE: What Inspired Your First Gwagen Purchase ?
Back in 1990 I was living in Monaco, which is just about an hour from the southern Alps and ski resorts. At that time there were not so many 4x4 around so I bought a 1990 280 GE to be able to reach the skiing just after the snowfall when other cars didn´t make it up there. I also had a boat and needed the space for transporting stuff. After a couple of years I replaced the dark blue G with a dark blue BMW 325 iAX Touring, also 4x4, that I kept for nearly ten years. After moving back to Sweden I started to miss the G and about a year ago I found this G 500 which has been great and I intend to keep it for a long time, unless another G will take it´s place.... |
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n2lw
Date registered: Dec 1899
Location:
Vehicle(s):
| Re: What Inspired Your First Gwagen Purchase ?
Saw the Europa lot in Santa Fe in the 80s. Lusted but couldnt afford till 2006 when I bought my 300ge. If I can figure it out I will try to post a pic. |
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bbrah
Regular
Date registered: Jun 2006
Location: Austin, Texas
Vehicle(s): 460.233 (1980 280GE LWB)
Posts: 68
| RE: What Inspired Your First Gwagen Purchase ?
I really wanted a military vehicle. I didn't plan to use it as a daily-driver, but I still wanted one that was streetable for occasional trips to the office or grocery store. That pretty much eliminated Dodge Power Wagons and Unimogs. So my choices were somewhat limited to a flat-fender M38, a Kaiser M-715, a Volvo Laplander, a VW Iltis, a Hummer H-1, a Puch Pinzgauer, or a Mercedes Gwagen.
I knew about the performance of the G from lurking in the Gwagen, Unimog, and Pinz forums, and I liked the fact that it was actually used by military forces worldwide, but my budget was limited to around $12K and I wanted to get a truck in good condition.
I was looking at Pinzis and was almost ready to buy one. I was showing my wife a photo of a 710M and by chance there was a Gwagen in the background. She said "what about that one" (pointing at the G). I said "That's a Mercedes Gwagen, I don't think that I can afford one." She asked how much they cost, and when I replied that I could probably get a decent used one for "about 5 grand more than I was planning to spend," she replied "I think that we can find the extra money in the budget."
So really it just came down to aesthetics. She hated the way that the Pinzgauer looked, so I got a LWB 280 instead.
I'm not entirely happy with my truck, because it's not an actual military vehicle. It's not olive drab, it has a radio, and it doesn't have yellow warning stickers all over the inside, but other than that I couldn't be more satisfied with it.
Anyway, I originally planned to keep my other car, but the G was comfortable enough that now it is my daily driver. |
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