Driver training courses have been in great demand for years, especially with the car manufacturers who organize them. So far, however, it has been the sports driver training courses on racetracks and frozen lakes that have delighted the fans of various car manufacturers. Anyone who wants to find out what their Mercedes G-Class is capable of doing away from the magnificent boulevards is in the right place on the site of the former Nittner air base, right next to Graz Airport. Even during the pandemic, the newly opened G-Class Experience Center had developed into a real crowd puller. Last year, between spring and late autumn, around 2,900 participants were able to push the star off-roader, which has been produced by Magna-Steyr in Graz since 1979, to its limits on the artificial site. The requirements of the 100,000 square meter area are based on Graz’s local mountain, the Schöckl, on which the test drives of every G-Class generation have taken place for five decades.
The Mercedes-Benz G-Class is one of the most famous cars in the world and one of the most famous SUVs anyway. It is mentioned in the same breath as off-road legends such as the Willys Jeep, a Jeep Wrangler, the Land Rover Defender and a Toyota Land Cruiser. Its angular silhouette is so unique that almost every child can draw it. It is just as at home heavily armored in crisis areas around the world as it is brightly polished and magnificently outfitted in the posh areas of Los Angeles, Munich or Shanghai. Even if many customers drive their Mercedes G-Class to the unpaved parking lot of the tennis court or to the riding arena at most; everyone knows that the Mercedes-Benz G-Class has been able to cope with even the most difficult terrain since its presentation in the late 1970s. Her tests are among the toughest in the world – not just around the Schöckl local mountain. And since many of the customers will hardly test this in their own everyday life, they can now do it in the Graz Experience Center. Soon also with the electric Mercedes G-Class, which will celebrate its premiere next year.
The terrain itself consists of various test modules: a natural and an artificial off-road area, the so-called G-Rock. Here the participants can experience the vehicle in hard off-road use on various driveways with different surfaces and gradients as well as diagonal drives and water crossings. Furthermore, various access ramps with gradients of up to 100 percent as well as an on-road area on the former airport taxiways can be used. In addition to the off-road requirements, the careful handling of the local conditions of the old air base was a priority during the construction of the area. The natural off-road paths were laid out in such a way that groups of trees and biotopes were preserved.
Since this year, factory deliveries of a special kind have also been taking place in the G-Class Experience Center. For around 2,500 euros there is a vehicle handover with rustic charm including hotel accommodation, dinner and a driving program in a wide variety of G-Class models. “We want to offer our customers an exclusive and comprehensive product and brand experience,” says Dr. Emmerich Schiller, responsible for the Mercedes G-Class, “with the factory delivery in the home of our off-road icon, we are creating an emotional framework that makes the special atmosphere at first contact with the new dream G even more intense.” At different driving stations in Accompanied by an instructor, the off-road capabilities of the all-wheel drive icon can be experienced. A factory tour of the nearby production plant provides special insights into the production of the Mercedes G model. As the final highlight, your own G-Class will be unveiled in a glass cube. Customer deliveries in Graz take place between mid-April and mid-November when the Experience Center hosts its driver training sessions.
There are a few icons with the star, and many classics, but no model like the angular, robust G-Class is as unique in the automotive industry as it is in the Stuttgart company’s history. The Mercedes-Benz commercial vehicle department developed the off-road vehicle in the mid-1970s together with Steyr-Daimler-Puch for use in the army and forestry. Series production was decided in 1975, after the first test drives had been extremely successful the year before, and the first major customer was already certain: the Shah of Persia, then a major shareholder of Daimler-Benz, ordered 20,000 vehicles right away. However, the revolution in Iran put a painful spanner in the works, but Daimler-Benz received other orders from the police and federal border guards, as well as from the armies of Argentina and Switzerland. The first vehicles were built from February 1979, largely by hand, as is still the case today in the Magna factory in Graz. Ever since it was born, the G-Class hasn’t been pretty, but a true outdoorsman. Nothing has changed in its bodywork for almost four decades – not even with the new edition presented in 2018. This also applies to the electric version, which will be rolling out in the coming year and will also populate the Experience Center.
