If there’s one thing on which the moneyed set can be counted, it’s to do everything in the extreme. Witness the Mercedes-AMG G 63 4×42, an immensely powerful SUV with portal axles which will surely see duty on the mean streets of Beverly Hills.
You remember the 4×42, right? It was a Mercedes moonshot that used portal axles to tuck more of its oily bits up out of harm’s way compared to a standard off-roader in order to provide maximum ground clearance. Naturally, it quickly became a darling of Hollywood despite its ability to successfully tackle the toughest legs of Dakar. Today, the company showed pictures of a new Mercedes-AMG G 63 4×42, tucked away on a dusty corner of its media website.
Tellingly, they describe it as “the last of its kind”, hinting that those of us who like our 4x4s all greasy and gasoline-powered need to get in on the action before the showroom turns electric by the end of this decade. Indeed, combined fuel consumption for this beast is listed at 20.1 L/100 km, which converts to roughly 11 mpg in Freedom units (expect far less in town). Swilling that fuel is a bi-turbo V8 engine making 585 horsepower fed to the ground through a permanent all-wheel-drive system.
Speaking of, if you’re wondering why this author is making such a fuss about portal axles, it’s down to the fact that they’re absurdly over-engineered pieces of kit and are highly prized by off-roaders. To massively oversimplify and undersell their construction, they basically use a series of gears and a housing on the ends of an axle to raise its centerline and diff relative to the wheel mounting surface. The wheel hub on yer pickup truck is generally on the same plane as its rear differential. Not with portal axles.
How much more? The machine on these digital pages has nearly 14 inches of ground clearance, a ramp angle of 40 degrees, and can ford water up to nearly three feet deep. This G Squared’s independent suspension helps matters, to say nothing of those portal axles. For comparison, an F-150 Raptor has 13 inches of ground clearance under its trucky frame, while the typical urban-oriented crossover usually has between 7 and 8 inches. Mercedes will surely ladle needless extravagance onto this G, especially if it’s the last of a breed. Expect the likes of 22-inch wheels, carbon elements along the body, and roof ladders which will never be used by most owners.
Expect to see these brutes, with an estimated price tag north of a quarter-mil, prowling tony areas of the country by the end of this year.
[Images: Mercedes-AMG]
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You mean the store shelves will be empty of portal axles? Now what……
AutoZone and O’Reilly’s are fresh out of portal axles!
It’s stunning how expensive used Hummer ones are on eBay.
I’m looking right now, and I just see one set of H1 portal axle gear boxes on eBay (set of 4 w/hubs) for $4k. In Salt Lake City.
Portal axle kits are expensive. Around 3k – 5k per corner.
I wonder how much Merc paid the Kardashians to feature these on the show?
Screw this Beverly Hills nonsense – I want to see Fred and Dave take one of these rock crawling on Dirt Every Day. Put a winch on the front, and see how many obstacles these things can get over without having to resort to the winch.
Portal axles? …because those Rodeo Drive curbs can be pretty steep.
Portal axles and 22″ 40-series tires on the same vehicle. Yes. very sensible.
I wonder if the goofy display which essentially IS the dashboard costs as much or more to replace than the average automobile?!
Mercedes sure has milked the rich with what is essentially a tarted up military vehicle.
They’ve been building basically the same G Wagen since 1978 so the costs must have been amortized for at least a couple of decades.
In the late 80’s a friend of mine saw of all people Bill Cosby tooling around Manhattan in a gray market one. He had the drivers side window open with a cigar hanging out of his mouth.
Exactly. Goes to show that image matters more than product.
“They’ve been building basically the same G Wagen since 1978 so the costs must have been amortized for at least a couple of decades.”
This was true for a long time, but the G Wagen was actually all new in 2018. The new ones share basically nothing with the original military vehicle.
Because those military spec (by Shah standards, but still) ones, were simply too expensive to produce….
@Stuki – IIRC it was the Australian military that wanted 6×6 G-Wagons.
Don’t know about the 6×6. But the regular G was originally requested by the Shah. With the civilian version to quickly follow.
After the Revolution, meny pro-Shah moneyed Iraninans moved to Beverly Hills. As opposed to more traditional luxury cars, the G-wagen was a way for them to demonstrate Shah allegance/”connection,” in addition to drivig an expensive Mercedes.
And then, Beverly Hills being Beverly Hills, aspiring showoffs world wide soon took note….
Mattracks or ATTs on your pickup truck will save you well over $200,000 and enable you to go places that portals could only dream of. They can only do 40 MPH, though, so put your street tires and an impact and a jack in the bed. Sorted.
Mattracks cost are going to be on par with aftermarket portal kits if not more expensive.
Is that G is even better than Hummer in its impracticality? Does it beat H1 in fuel consumption (that is a serious matter among Intelegentsia)? Well why Mercedes does not make all electric version of G for Hollywood types?
I thought the original 4×4 2 had dual rear axles and hence 6 wheels? This appears to have lost an axle
The 6×6 was a military vehicle tarted up for the wealthy. This has the same portals but obviously just 4×4
A cheaper way to get portal axles is with a pre-’68 VW bus or a VW Thing. Only 2WD though.
LOL! You beat me to it, TR4. And you’d have a bit of reduction gearing to boot!
Seems portals are passed-by on rock bouncers, hill climbers & 99% of offroaders; skid plates are the alternative that win competitions.
They’re mainly, not 100% exclusively) great for driving in the ruts created by the 245 similar trucks ahead of you in a convoy over soft terrain (in trucks. Tractors have them for crop clearance). In addition to the added ground clearance under the low hanging diff, they also provide an additional level of reduction right at the wheels.
Portal axles…wasn’t the Volkswagen Thing like that?
VW Type 2’s prior to 1968 used portals with reduction gearing (either 1.39 to 1 or 1.26 to 1) to help move a loaded bus uphill with a tiny 1200 cc or 1300 cc engine.
Am I just being a needlessly dense and old fashioned Fudd, by wondering how the heck one combines portal “axles” with “independent suspension”, without first, at a minimum, breaking those fancy portal axles in half?
Weren’t Humvee’s portal and independent?
The Humwee has independent suspension. No live axles at all. The military version does attach driveshafts to the wheels at the top of the wheel, like what is done on portal axles. Both for reduction and ground clearance. Not sure if that is also true for the civilian version Ahnold used to knock mirrors off of parked cars with, back in the day.