It’s no secret this industry is moving towards smaller displacement engines, with power adders cropping up on machines of all shapes and sizes as part of an effort to meet fuel economy and emission regs while maintaining the level of power to which we’ve become accustomed.
Last summer, Mercedes-Benz indicated they were dropping V8 engines from their lineup, favoring smaller mills for a myriad of reasons. Someone in a corner office has evidently had a rethink, as it has been confirmed there will be Mercs with eight cylinders in the 2022 model year after all.
According to reports by those in the know, certain models of the Mercedes-Benz lineup are open for ordering and have the option of a twin-turbo V8 engine. Namely, GLE and GLS rigs are on tap, plus the big daddy G-Wagen. It’ll not escape your notice these are all hulking (and profitable) SUVs.
As our own Matt Posky noted last year when the company announced the death of their V8 lineup, reasons for the move were cloudy, with official spox vacillating between blaming the move on regulatory hurdles and some sort of quality issue. The latter was odd, given the use of Mercedes V8s in other applications and the apparent realization that octopots would be offered in other markets.
But life comes at you fast, it seems. There is a case to be made that well-heeled customers on this side of the pond balked at the concept of paying big bucks for vehicles powered by six cylinders, no matter the level of horsepower. As most of us well know, appearances are everything to some people – especially in certain social circles – and there may have been customer or dealer feedback driving this reversal.
Or maybe Mercedes simply found a cache of V8s they forgot about in a German warehouse.
[Image: Mercedes-Benz]
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Good for them. Recognizing that giving customers what they want is good for business.
Off topic, but that two-tone SUV is some Pep Boys s**t.
That’s generous. I was thinking more Pimp My Ride. It’s godawful.
I have a GLC with the 4 cylinder turbo, It’s adequate, but for the GLE with more weight and for more $$$, its ridiculous. I think the V-8 option is a great idea. I wonder how much this will add to the price?
The magic powertrain is the I6 in the GLE 450 and AMG GLE 53, but they are both overpriced. I agree that the GLE 350’s turbo-4 is inexcusable at over $70K, which is how I ended up picking the X5. If the GLE had retained its previous 3.5 V6 as a base engine, it might’ve been a different story.
That home depot chicken wire grille gets me every time
“The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.” – Henry David Thoreau
So the end of the world has been delayed until 2023.
Congrats Matthew Guy on completely mischaracterizing why Mercedes initially suspended V8 availability on certain models. This was never supposed to be permanent and Mercedes never indicated otherwise. They said it was suspended on certain MY22 vehicles only. No one “changed their minds. “
This website can be such trash sometimes.
Nice paint job. Unique without looking like someone did it in their back yard. The wheels are good, too, but a couple of inches too large in diameter.
RHD predicts that if offered here, it will sell, but in very low numbers.
Stuffed up with turbos, what’s even the difference?
The whole charm of big engines, is you don’t need to rid them of all charm by chaining them to blowers. I can’t imagine even a dead turtle wouldn’t immediately recognize the 6.4 Hemi as the pick of the litter, versus any of the multiturboed V8 exercises in boredom coming out of Germany these days.
What’s more darkly, bizarrely ironic than the concept of a “green” Rolls Royce? It does fit perfectly with the mindset of flying in one’s private jet to Davos to talk about climate change. Virtue signaling to satisfy the tiniest of tiny souls.