A Hundred Grand Day Out
First featured in 4x4 Magazine, may 2018
With a combination of sensational scenery and technically challenging terrain, the Lake District has some of the best rights of way in the whole of Britain. The perfect place, then, for the Mercedes G-Class to demonstrate that after all this time, it still has what it takes – just so long as you don’t mind wrestling with the rocks aboard a £97,300 off-roader...
You can drive the same bit of ground twice in five minutes and it can be different each time.That’s one of the most basic rules of off-roading, and one of the things that makes it such an endlessly fascinating hobby.
But we know the lanes in the Lake District. We’ve been up here many times, savouring the fabulous combination of scenery and tricky, rocky driving that makes it so enduringly popular among Britain’s rights of way users.We’ve done them in all sorts of vehicles, and we know where we’re at.
We’ve done them in a Defender, a Discovery, a Patrol and a Land Cruiser. Some standard, some modified. But we’ve never done them in a hundred grand’s worth of someone else’s Mercedes-Benz G-Class.
To be fair, the list price for a G 350 d is only £88,800. (‘Only,’ ha ha ha.) But this one has just under ten grand’s worth of off-road equipment on it, including a Warn Zeon Platinum winch, LazerTriple-R LED bar, ARB Deluxe roof rack and 255/55R19 Atturo Trail Blade mud-terrain tyres on AMG alloys. Add it all up and it would cost you £97,300 – so it might not quite be a hundred-grand off-roader, but who’s asking?
Not us, certainly. In the world we inhabit, that hundred grand might as well be a hundred million.Which is approximately what it feels like it’s going to cost if things go wrong on one of the many temptingly hard and sharp outcrops waiting to get us on the Lakeland trails which, surprise surprise, have become way more extreme since we were last here.
We ought to have seen that coming. Not least because we’re always telling people to see things like that coming, but also because there’s been the small matter of a freakishly intense wet winter in Cumbria since then.The kind that washes bridges away, as you might recall.
So this was very much a case of don’t do what we do, do what we say. But then, ‘go laning in the Lake District’ is something we’d say to anyone with a good 4x4 and a sense of adventure, so figure that one out.
And the G-Class is more than just a good 4x4. It’s a brilliant one.A brilliant one which just happens to cost a small fortune, but you do get an awful lot of truck for your money.The
original G-Wagen, as it used to be called,
was a much more basic truck, and with that vehicle’s 38-year-old design still providing the underpinnings for the current model, there’s an element of making do about where the controls, dials and so on are located – but that doesn’t half make for a flight deck of a cabin. And the
stuff you’re controlling is spot-on – how many other new 4x4s give you a full set of locking diffs (proper ones, not an ABS-banging alternative) installed within proper live axles? There’s a dual- range transfer box too, of course, and the seven- speed auto upstream of it does what you ask when low range is engaged.It’s a clever vehicle, but one you can properly drive.
It also has a fantastic driving position. People who think all cars should be Ferraris will hate
it the way they hate a visit to the dentist, but you sit wonderfully upright, a little closer to the steering wheel than you might want but with
the road (or track) ahead laid out before you like the view out of a low-flying aircraft. It makes the G-Class incredibly relaxing on the motorway
(when cruising up to the Lake District for a day’s laning, for example) and puts you in position of power from which to survey the terrain. If ever there was a truck to remind you how valuable it is to be able to see what you’re doing, this would be it.
Ironic,then,that I want to close my eyes as we edge our way past another of these jagged looking outcrops, just as a malevolent looking side slope leans us over towards it and our nearside wing mirror starts brushing the ground. This is going to be close.
The ground itself is nothing the G-Class can’t handle at a stroll.There’s plenty of grip, and it’s nowhere near uneven enough to flex out the axles, let alone call for the lockers. But what a
reminder of why I like green laning in vehicles whose bodywork I don’t need to worry about. The Nissan Patrol we mentioned earlier was my own property back in the day, so while I didn’t set out to put dents in it I didn’t have to answer to anyone else for it if they happened.And oh, they happened. None in the Lake District, but by the time it found a new owner there wasn’t a lot of straight metal left on it.
I definitely, definitely don’t want the G-Class to go the same way. It’s the same every time I get behind the wheel of a vehicle a manufacturer has loaned us for test driving, but never before have I gone laning in one worth this much. Not in the sort of terrain the Lakeland lanes can throw at you, at any rate.
The thing is, you’re never more than a few inches away from bedrock round here. Some combination of nature and human intervention may in places have smoothed it off to the point where it’s drivable, but it’s right there – and if nature comes back to wash away whatever material has been filling in the gaps, you can find that what’s left is very uneven indeed.
There’s a long and fabulously scenic right of way that runs round the north side of the Tarn Hows lake, for example. Time was that you could just about drive it in an everyday car, but water erosion has changed that.We came across a group of walkers – which happens a lot in this area, but they don’t normally congregate by an exposed crag of rock to watch you pick your way over it. By and large this is still one
of the gentler right of way in the area between Coniston Water and Windermere, but right now it has technical sections which definitely had us thinking about the Merc’s 112” wheelbase.
We were also in mind of the tyres on this particular G-Class.The Atturo Trail Blade is a very good mud-terrain, but 255/55R19 is
not the size we’d choose for any kind of off- road use. Surely a vehicle like this deserves something taller than a 30-incher? Even a modest 265/75R16 would only add about 1.5” in height while making a huge difference in terms of the all-important sidewall height; we’ve no idea if a 16” rim would make it round the vehicle’s brakes, but you get the point. Low-profile tyres and off-roading are like chalk and cheese, and apart from anything else we think they look silly on a big 4x4.
Not that we were ever embarrassed by the size of the tyres on our G-Class, anyway.And without having to air them down, the Atturos did an excellent job of gripping on to a mixture of rock, both wet and dry, loose stones and, in between times, the sort of general sloppy crud you tend to get in higher- level woodlands.
The track through Grizedale Forest Park is a good example of this. It’s also a good example of the opportunities you get to do your bit for the local economy when you go out for a day on the trails, as the cafe in the visitors’ centre at the west end of the right of way does what remains one of the best picnic lunches we’ve ever had.
Another good reason to drive the Grizedale track is that it’s home to some interesting works of outdoor sculpture. Since 1977, leading artists have been contributing to what’s known as the UK’s first Forest For Sculpture, a project run under the auspices of the Forestry Commission which has helped give the place a unique fascination.You can see a few of these works from the track itself,though the way to really get to grips with them is to go on foot, as most are in locations that are out of bounds to vehicles.
Even so, one of them actually provides a useful landmark as you follow the right of way through the forest. Having climbed the hillside away from the visitors’ centre (watching out for mountain bikers coming towards you at warp speed), you merge on to a much bigger, smoother track then filter out of it again – next to an enormous
wooden fox.Very handy, though it might put you in mind of Monty Python and the Holy Grail...
Things get very uneven on the way down the hill, to the extent that wheels are likely to lift. Our G-Class just about managed to keep all four on the ground through the steep axle-twisters, but we could certainly feel its weight shifting as the rears took it in turn to lighten up.
That was nothing compared to the way its body was moved about later in the day, though, on the trail running north towards Langdale from High Tilberthwaite.You’re in serious all-terrain territory almost from the start, here – though first, there’s some courtesy to be extended to the farmers who live at the southern end of the right of way.Access is right through the middle
of the farmyard, and green laning protocol round here asks vehicle users to walk ahead and open the gate in advance rather than sitting among the buildings with their engines running. Particularly important if you’re in a convoy, obviously.
The trail climbs quickly from here, and it’s rocky from the start.Actually,it wasn’t as uneven as I remembered, which filled me with what turned out to be false confidence. Further on, there are proper axle-twisters, outcrops to be scaled and one particular side slope that had my guts churning as I eased the G-Class along, inch by inch, with its bodywork getting ever closer
to the exposed rock to its left. Having made it through, the last thing I wanted to do was have to turn round and go back.
Good news, then, that a retaining wall further along from here has been repaired. A couple of years ago,Tilberthwaite faced closure because the wall’s footings were getting undermined and the local authorities couldn’t find the two or three grand it would cost to repair it.To save the lane, this was raised via donations by motor vehicle users, principally through the Green Lane Association and Trail Riders’ Fellowship.
In truth, as a right of way the lane should be maintained at the taxpayer’s expense. But we all know how stretched public funds are, and in this case paying for the repairs was simply a matter of what would actually work. Not something you’d want to be taken as a precedent, however – and a few weeks after the donation had been made, green lane users were less than happy to hear in the news that a quarter of a million pounds of taxpayers’ money had been spent on repairing damage caused by hillwakers’ boots on a Welsh mountain. One law for the the rich, powerful masses, another for a tiny minority... surely not?
Let’s leave such distasteful thoughts to one side.We’re high up now and there are glorious views ahead of us, even in the gloom of an overcast day. But there’s not much time to enjoy them, because after one massive off-camber axle-twister comes what feels like a sheer drop off the face of a cliff. It’s not, of course, nothing like it, but try telling yourself that when you’re easing a large, valuable piece of someone else’s property over the edge.
Happily, the G-Class is much less easily shaken by such things than the humans on board. But further on, approaching the junction with another track, we come to a bigger obstacle still. It’s a massive, angled slab of smooth rock giving on to the jagged edge of outcropping rock strata that makes up the embankment on the far side of the track – and if things go wrong here, we’re toppling sideways into it. I get out and recce it on foot. I figure out the line I’d take. I look at each bit of ground and yes, I can picture the Merc’s wheels gripping, keeping it upright and moving the whole way through.
But I already know what’s coming next. I ask myself ‘what if’ and the answer is obvious. If I get this wrong, if we lose grip, if it doesn’t stay upright, we’re either going sideways into those rocks or, worse, rolling over on to them. Either way, maybe I’d give it a try if the vehicle was my own and there was someone here to tow it back from the brink (or beyond) – but up here on our own, the G-Class must be denied the opportunity to prove its ultimate off-road abilities. Sorry Mercedes, but I don’t want to break your car.
Thankfully, this doesn’t mean turning round and retracing our steps back to the farm.The junction is shown on the OS map to have a diagonal short-cut to the other track – and while this is very faint on the ground, it’s visible and it allows us to skirt round the section that would have been a rock face too far. Soon (well, soonish, as there are more axle twisters still to come), we’re taking the G-Class back out of low box and, a few very deep breaths later, piloting it back
on to the tarmac. It’s been a scary session on the rocks, but Merc’s best has been unflappable; we’re through, and we’re through unscathed.
With that, it’s time once again to enjoy the heated leather seats, the premium entertainment system and the peerless view of the traffic all around as we head back down the M6 for home.The G-Class might not be the last word in refined cruising the way something like the S-Class is, but it glides along with the same graceful poise and overwhelming confidence that it brings to dealing with jagged, uneven rocks.
And then something happens that’s never happened to us before and will almost certainly never happen again.You know how rap artists like to drop the names of expensive cars in their songs? Well, on the radio someone called J-Hus says something about a G-Wagen, and just for a moment there he’s talking about our car.
A car which, of course, will shortly go back to Mercedes, so it’s not really ours at all. But it’ll go back in one piece, and after taking on some of the trails we’ve driven today that says a lot for its design and off-road ability alike.
It might be priced like a rap star’s bauble – but the G-Class is, absolutely, the real deal. If you can afford to think about a Range Rover or whatever, the same sort of money could put you into the most competent, most heroic, most achingly authentic off-roader ever to cost a hundred grand. And if you can afford to buy one, you can afford not to worry about scratching it. Perfect.
