The G-Wagen Convertible Returns To Make You Care About Mercedes Again

After teasing the motoring world ever so slightly, Mercedes-Benz’s social media team has whipped the covers off the latest entry in its long-lived G-Class line, revealing the return of the cabriolet model with a little bit of a twist.

Famously a rugged military vehicle that made the transition to civilian life with ease, to the point of becoming a status symbol for the wealthy, the Gelandewagen is the car that Mercedes has been making longer than any other. Only the literally agricultural Unimog surpasses the G-Class’s 46-year unbroken run.

Historically, if you wanted an open-top G from Mercedes, you had to settle for fewer doors. The classic two-door G-Class Cabriolet was a staple of the W460 and W463 generations for decades, serving as the eccentric sibling to the traditional wagon.

From the rugged, diesel-chugging W461 “Wolf” military variants used by NATO forces to the plush, V8-powered G500 Cabriolets of the early 2000s, the short-wheelbase drop-top was something of a car culture classic – just not a very subtle one.

When Mercedes finally axed the convertible in 2013 with the highly coveted Final Edition 200, it felt like the end of an era as the new G-Class was only available in long-wheelbase form. There was, of course, the utterly insane Mercedes-Maybach G650 Landaulet of 2017, which offered a semi-convertible rear roof for ultra-wealthy rear-seat passengers, but that was a hyper-limited, portal-axled behemoth rather than a production-line drop-top.

Teasers for the G-Class Cabriolet shown last December presented the car as a four-door, and the latest reveal now confirms that to be the case, marking the first time that the standard production G-Class will combine a four-door layout with a folding fabric top.

The new images and video – showing the power-folding soft top dropping down onto the rear – also confirm that the open-air experience is for all, with the fabric roof comprising a section above the front seats, which articulates back to take the lid off completely. There’s a glimpse of a rather beefy frame around the roof edge, probably to keep the whole car from twisting and as part of an integrated roll structure.

Although Mercedes has kept the camo wrap on much of the rear of the car for reasons known only to itself, there are a few more obvious details. We’ll start with the redesigned rear spare wheel cover, which now features an integrated high-level brake light rather than this being separate as on the prototype shown last year:

There are also some hints that, in this guise at least, the new G Cabriolet will be a performance model first. If the side-exit exhausts, AMG wheels with relatively skinny tires, and AMG plates weren’t enough of a giveaway, the videos also provide some V8 audio which very much suggests the model will debut with a 577hp, four-liter, bi-turbo V8 G63.

The G-Class also has a straight-six G500 model, a turbodiesel G450d in Europe, and the most recently added G580 EQ all-electric variant, but we’ll have to wait and see whether any of these join in the top-off action.

Mercedes is set to reveal the G-Class Cabriolet in full later this year, probably with a pretty handsome price hike over the fixed-roof model. The regular G63 is already a $200,000 car, with the Cabrio likely to join its sibling on the Magna production line in Graz, Austria, which has thus far built over 600,000 examples.

There’s not a lot out there that can match the spectacle of the rolling filing cabinet that is the G-Class, but a convertible version of it certainly hits that spot.

Top graphic image: Mercedes-Benz