MERCEDES -AMG G63 IS WORTH $200,000

this is a new Mercedes AMG g63 and it's the most desirable SUV on the market right now the starting price for a new g63 is around a hundred and fifty thousand dollars but these are currently going for way over the sticker price due to high demand and limited supply with some examples selling for as much as two hundred and fifty thousand dollars today I'm going to review the new g63 and find out what makes it so desirable I've borrowed this g 63 from CNC motors which is an exotic car dealership here in Southern California that has an amazing inventory of everything from multi-million dollar supercars to cool SUVs to vintage classics they have one of the most incredible showrooms of any car dealership on the planet and you can check them out by clicking the link in the description below so let's talk G 63 now as you probably know the original Mercedes G wagon came out back in the 1970s and over the years it was updated and improved and refreshed and refined but it was never fully redesigned until last year and as a result demand for the all-new model has been huge now I already reviewed the new g wagon a little over a year ago but that was the base model the entry-level version the g550 this is the one everyone really wants the new G 63 the high performance version of the G Wagen which uses a twin turbo v8 that makes 577 horsepower and 627 pound-feet of torque which is about 150 horsepower and 175 pound feet more than the regular G 550 this will also do 0 to 60 in the low 4 second range even though it's shaped like a file cabinet and like I mentioned it has a starting price of around 150 thousand dollars but that's nothing compared to the market price like I mentioned these are all going for over the sticker price right now to the point where people who got on the list early at the Mercedes dealer to buy one for the sticker price are now turning around and flipping them for tens of thousands of dollars of profit every one it seems once the new G's 63 so today I'm going to show you why first I'm gonna take you on a tour of the new G 63 and I'm gonna show you all of the quirks and features of one of the most highly demanded SUVs on the market then I'm gonna get it out on the road and see how it drives and then I'm gonna give it a dug store alright I'm gonna start the perks and features of the new g63 on the outside and I want to talk about some of the more interesting upgrades you get if you get the AMG version now like all AMG is it comes with your typical stuff for example larger wheels with a different design than what you get in the regular g550 and you also have larger brakes with red calipers to signify this car's performance upgrade but for the g63 the upgrades go a bit further than that to some interesting items you don't get on other Mercedes models like for example the front bumper situation you have a more aggressive front bumper which is typical of AMG s but you also have this like brush guard thing this may be annoption in the regular G Wagon but it's on all of the AMG models this is the high-performance g wagon but it's also ready for the brush when you take it off roading it can push aside trees in your very expensive luxury SUV not a typical AMG modification but my very favorite exterior AMG modification for this vehicle is the exhaust pipes all AMG cars have quad exhausts two on each side for four total but with the G Wagen there's a problem because it doesn't have rear exit exhaust like all of the other AMG models and pretty much every other car so what did they do well they gave it quad exhausts anyway you have two pipes on the left side and you have two more pipes on the right side for a total of four exhausts they're just not right next to each other like all the other AMG's and just like all the other AMG's the exhaust still sounds pretty good to take a listen to this thing revving but when it comes to sounds the best noise the G makes is not the exhaust but rather the doors when the G originally came out it was a military vehicle 3040 years ago and the doors always closed with this very satisfying click sound this is one of the things people liked the best about the old G wagon and so even though mercedes-benz completely redesigned the G Wagon and made a totally new one they kept that door latch sound from the old model just listen for a minute and if that sound is incredibly satisfying to you to me it is the most satisfying card or sound then take a listen to the door lock sound which is also the old-school kind of clicking that everybody loved from the old mode have a listen to me those noises will be forever associated with the g-wagen and that solid sound that the doors make when they click and when they lock is one of the reasons people love this car so much although there is a drawback to that sound every other mercedes-benz you can leave the key in your pocket walk right up to it put your hand on the door handle and it'll unlock and you can open the door but not this one in order to keep that old-school sound they had to keep the old-school door locks in door handles so for the g-wagen you actually have to press the unlock button when you approach in order to get into the car but that's the sacrifice we must make for the perfect door sounds anyway when you open the door to the G the first thing you notice there is a little badge inside the doorjamb that says mercedes-benz g shook 'l proved that's right this vehicle is shuckle proved and your crappy off-roader is not chuckle proved whatever that means no apparently that some Mountain in Austria where they test the G Wagen during development sort of like jeeps trail rated badge for the Rubicon trail but they stick it right in there and then it says chuckle proved as if you're supposed to know what that means or care kind of weird and next we move into the Chuckle proved interior of the new G 63 and the first thing you notice in here is that the interior is just a massive upgrade over the old model I already covered this in my review of the g5 50 but it is worth noting if you've been in the old G Wagon you get in this you'll hardly notice a resemblance it's a big upgrade now the materials and Technology are obviously a lot better than the outgoing model but to me the biggest upgrade in here is the interior room the new G Wagon looks the same as the old one but actually it's five inches wider and all five of those inches have gone into creating more interior space the best example of that is the cupholders the old G Wagon had that ridiculous basketball hoop cup holder hanging off the center console in the passenger footwell the new one has two rational cup holders side by side in the middle in the center console because now they have room for it and there's other modernization beyond just that for example the gear lever was stuck in the center console in the old one which took up a lot of space along with the parking brake both of those items are now gone you have the gear lever on the steering column and the parking brake is a little switch in the drivers footwell and that frees up more room for storage and for buttons and switches in the center console and to just modernize this interior dramatically with that said despite being modernisations in this interior the g-wagen is still a tremendously capable off-roader and there are still some reminders in here of its capabilities for example over on the passenger side of the dashboard you have a grab handle and this thing is not just for show you can pull this as hard as you can it won't come off the intent is that it gives you something to hold on to when you're going over rocks or off-road terrain and similarly right in the middle of the center console you have your differential Locker buttons this is where other mercedes-benz models would have an extra climate control vent but not the g-wagen you have the buttons that will lock the diffs and you still have three separate lockers one for the center lock and then another for the front or rear which can be locked independently now most people who buy this car probably don't even know what differential lockers are but they're very useful when you're in extreme off-roading situations and one of the reasons people pay so much for the g-wagen is because they know that capability exists and that's not the only important off-roading button in here if you go into the center consol you have a few buttons over on the passenger side one is marked low range and that's your low range button which of course will be useful also in difficult off-roading situations but anyway let's talk buttons in this center console area because there are some unusual ones over on the driver side you have a button that looks like a shock absorber you press that and one light lights up on the button putting the suspension in sport mode you press it a second time and another light lights up on the button putting it in Sport Plus mode and press a third time the lights turn off and now you're back in normal mode so that changes your suspension now right above that you have a little letter M and some gears that puts the transmission in manual mode and once you've pressed that you can then use the shift paddles on the steering wheel to up shift downshift now over on the passenger side you have the little parking camera button you turn that on and the parking cameras turn on and you can adjust which camera angle you want the thing I love about the parking camera display here is that the top-down angle actually shows AG wagon and not just some generic car which makes you feel a little bit better about your vehicle than someone with a peasant like CLA or a little plebeian eClass that doesn't show their exact vehicle but anyway since we're talking infotainment system let's go through some of the interesting quirks and features in here one is in the parking sensors settings you can configure the tone of the parking sensors and while you do that you can play a song here's mine and next up speaking of the parking related settings in the G in the parking settings you have an option to open the camera cover and when you click on that the reverse camera pops out of its little cover which is in a little circle in the tailgate now this is interesting when you're not in Reverse that parking camera goes back into the cover to kind of provide a cleaner look in back but when you go into reverse or when you manually open the camera cover it pops out so you're thinking well why would someone want to open the camera cover themselves if they're not in Reverse and the answer is to clean it in case the camera gets dusty or dirty you can manually open the camera cover go back there wipe it off and next up I want to talk about the infotainment system itself this vehicle like all the new G wagons has Mercedes kind of dual screen setup but this isn't Mercedes most recent version of this system and as a result it's not as good and I say that because it isn't a touchscreen th newest mercedes-benz system is called MB UX and it allows you to control it as a touchscreen or with this little controller in the center console in the g-wagon you can only use the controller in the center console to control things and it's just not quite as intuitive or as easy as if you had the touchscreen option as well it's interesting because this car is probably only about a year old but it's amazing how quickly these systems already start to feel outdated when new ones come out and it's the same deal in the gauge cluster the gauge cluster is a full screen which is the most modern up-to-date way to do it and it is excellent now you can configure a portion of the screen to show various different information like for example your phone settings or your radio settings if that's what you want to see or your vehicle information or it'll show you how much horsepower and torque in boost you're currently using but it just doesn't have the ultimate configurability that the newest mercedes benz MB UX system has or you can basically put whatever you want in that gauge cluster if you want to see something specific right in front of you again it's good but it just has already become outdated very quickly and next we move on to the back seat in the new G 63 and the first thing you notice when you get back here is of course the sizing it's better than the outgoing model but it still isn't really all that big despite the Mercedes G wagons outward appearance and sort of its reputation i is not a very big SUV the new G Wagon is only three and a half inches longer than a Toyota Corolla and so the result is that the back seat isn't that huge the front passenger seat is where I would be sitting and as you can see my knees are right up against the back of the front seat there's just not all that much room for your legs and knees back here although I will happily admit there is tons of Headroom thanks to this vehicles file cabinet like design now with that said there are a few nice creature comforts back here for example you have a rear seat climate zone back here you have a third climate zone and like you can see you can adjust it with these little switches in the back of the front center console one thing that is both surprising and unusual in the world of back seats is the floor mat situation back here because there are three individual floor mats you can see there's one on each side and there's one weirdly shaped small Center floor mat basically every other SUV has one large floor mat that goes across the entire floor in the back seats but not the g-wagen now I will say one disappointing factor with the back seats in the g-wagon is getting them to fold flat if you want to increase your cargo space in back virtually all of the luxury SUVs at this price point have a little button you can push in the cargo area that will electronically lower the seats for a larger cargo area but not the g-wagen and when you actually go around to the seat to put it down it isn't especially easy they are either first you have to fold up the seat bottom and then there's a latch you pull that folds forward this seat back in order to get it flat so it's a two-step process far more cumbersome and difficult than any other luxury SUV on the market so let me be aware of if you plan to frequently drop your seats to put larger items in back and speaking of difficult and cumbersome let's talk about getting into the cargo area of the g-wagen I say difficult and cumbersome because it has a rear door and not a tailgate unlike basically every other SUV and the reason for that is everybody likes the look of the g-wagen you have this squared off rear end with a tire and tire cover mounted on the back but you can't mount a tire on a tailgate because it's way too heavy so you have to put it on a rear door and as a result it opens up like this and it is quite a heavy piece to open it can be very difficult especially if you're on a hill it's one big heavy rear door but believe it or not the biggest problem with the rear door is not the fact that it's heavy but rather that they can't make it power operated and the other SUV and hatchback now has a power tailgate right on down to ones that cost twenty-five thousand dollars but because this is a door and not a tailgate it has to be opened manually which is kind of a disappointment for the 150 to 200 thousand dollar price point now once you're into the cargo area the sizing is rather difficult you do have a nice flat load floor and of course because this is a boxy vehicle you have a tall boxy space where you can put stuff but the g-wagen is smaller than most other SUVs at this price point that's reflected in the cargo area especially on the sides where the wheel arches kind of come in and really compress the cargo area and make it pretty narrow it is not a huge cargo area back here but anyway there are a few other in foresting exterior quirks and features worth discussing with this car one of which is the running lights you can see their circles the g-wagen has this signature front and circle headlight look like a lot of capable off loaders but in this case they've been able to integrate the modern LEDs into those circles which kind of blends new and old mixed up another interesting look on the outside of the new G wagon is the rain gutters which are exposed virtually all cars have rain gutters on the outside that channel and direct water down the car when it rains or goes through a car wash but typically those gutters are hidden under bodywork now the original G Wagon had exposed rain gutters because that's just what you did in the 70s and they've carried that look on to the new model too very unusual to see in modern times probably the last car with exposed rain gutters and one more exposed item I find interesting is the turn signal the signal is mounted here at the top of the front fender instead of integrated into the headlight assembly like basically all other cars and I have to admit I really like how this looks it gives it a very distinctive look and you can see the turn signal being on from the front seat which makes you feel like you're above everything and it's just a neat look again carried forward from the previous G Wagon although now modernized with LEDs and finally we go under the hood in the g63 and you can see the power train which is mercedes new 4 liter twin-turbo v8 they're putting in all of their 63 AMG models it's a fantastic engine and in this vehicle it puts out 577 horsepower and 627 pound-feet of torque just massive numbers for a vehicle this size 0-60 is in the low 4 second range she's crazy considering the aerodynamics of the G Wagen and so those are the quirks and features of the new Mercedes AMG g 63 now it's time to get it out on the road and see how it drives alright then the new g63 it surprises me to admit it but there is a lot to love about the new g63 and i say that surprises me because the old model i really thought was crap the interior was not that good it was not a great car to drive in fact it was quite a terrible car to drive I felt it was vastly overpriced there were not a lot of good things to say about it but the new model is a vast improvement to the point where you don't just buy this because you'll want to look cool you actually buy it because it's a good vehicle and I think one of the best luxury SUVs on the market for one thing this interior huge step up over the old g wagon tremendously more comfortable far more interior space it just feels like a much much nicer place to spend time because it is the driving experience is a thousand times better this car is more comfortable than the old model it's easier to drive the steering is a lot better vastly vastly improved there are a lot a lot a lot of benefits to the way that this one drives feels more stable feels more planted on the road the far more rational and luxurious car it is far more comfortable than the old one sitting in here it just feels nicer more luxurious you don't feel the road as much it's it's hard to overstate the difference which is actually interesting because they didn't really change the appearance all that much the G still looks pretty similar but it is just vastly better in terms of an that's the acceleration DMV version Wow you know it's not like crazy sports car fast it's not exotic car fast it's not 911 turbo fast but this is a boxy blocky SUV that looks like a file cabinet and that to me is the crazy thing there's an expectation that's exceeded here what do you get in a 918 you expect it to be fast when you get in this it's like I can't believe they've made this ridiculous thing fast it also steers and handles so much better than the old model not only is the ride just far more supple but they've also been able to make it steer more precisely I truly can't say enough nice things about the way this car drives and I know I know that generally speaking these are bought by obnoxious people people who want to show off their wealth have absolutely no shame about buying an expensive vehicle throwing it at everyone's face the the sound of it the look of it but in the past I judged the hell out of those people because they were compromising on everything to get that they were getting a terrible driving experience in a bad car with bad interior and they were paying way too much for it but now the new G Wagon is actually good it is in the realm of the Range Rover the Cayenne all of the other best SUVs and personally I hate to say it but I think it's probably the one I would get over those it's more comfortable I love the look I love the technology MB UX would make things better in here but generally speaking this is the luxury SUV standard now and I think it's a big step up over all the rivals and so that's the new Mercedes AMG G 63 this isn't the fastest new SUV on sale or the toughest or the most practical but it's an excellent combination of all three something that's capable off-road and at the drag strip and it can haul your kids to school and the fact that it's a brand new model that no one else has just makes it that much more sought-after and now it's time to give the new g63 a dug score starting with the weekend categories in styling the new G 63 looks great one of my favourite SUVs and it gets a 7 out of 10 acceleration does your 60 and 4.3 seconds and it gets a 7 out of 10 handling is good better than the old G Wagen but it's still a tall blocky SUV and it gets a 5 out of 10 fun factor is good for an SUV and it gets a 6 out of 10 cool factor as high as these are among the coolest SUVs on the market right now and it gets a six out of ten for a total weekend score of 31 out of 50 next up are the daily categories and features this is well equipped they're not class leading and it gets a 7 out of 10 comfort is excellent among the best and it gets an 8 out of 10 quality is high the interior is great a huge improvement over the old G and it gets a 7 out of 10 practicality is excellent and it gets a 9 out of 10 finally value and here's where it falters a bit this is a great vehicle but with a starting price of around a hundred and sixty thousand dollars and a current market price that's even higher than that it's quite pricey even considering how good it is and it gets a 5 out of 10 for a total daily score of 36 out of 50 add it up in the dug score is 67 out of 100 which places it here against other new high performance Mercedes models and other ultra luxury or high-performance SUVs the new G 63 does well combining a great interior great tack a comfortable ride and excellent performance but be prepared to pay big money for it.