A surprise announcement on the Mercedes-AMG Facebook page: “The icon evolves. The top goes down. The legendary G Cabriolet returns.” Mercedes-AMG has announced the comeback of the Mercedes G-Class Cabrio, without giving further details.
The photo posted on the Mercedes-AMG Facebook page looks like a pick-up, but Mercedes insists it is a cabriolet. Shown in profile, this Mercedes G-Class has the silhouette of a pick-up, but let’s take Mercedes-AMG at their word that it is indeed a cabriolet.
Mercedes suffered a painful failure with the Mercedes X-Class, built on the Nissan Navara platform, and currently, expensive pick-ups such as the Ineos Quartermaster, based on the Ineos Grenadier, are not enjoying strong demand.
On the other hand, ever since the first G-Class generation, the W460 produced between 1979 and 1991, Mercedes has offered a two-door cabrio version. In 1990, Mercedes launched the new civilian version W463, successor to the W460, produced until 2018, for which Mercedes also offered a two-door cabrio and a special Landaulet edition. In 2017, Mercedes built a limited series of only 99 units of the Mercedes-Maybach G 650 Landaulet. The rear end of the G 650 Landaulet was built from the back part of the W463 cabriolet, with a folding fabric roof covering the rear half of the body behind the B-pillar.
However, the second generation W463, produced between 2018 and 2024, was available only as a five-door closed-body version, and its successor, the W465, also comes in a single body style.
Except for the 2017 Landaulet special series, cabrio versions have always had two doors and a short wheelbase. But today Mercedes no longer offers a short-wheelbase G-Class, and as can be seen in the first profile photo released by Mercedes-AMG on Facebook, it appears to be a four-door body with an open rear section.
This is why, in profile, the photo resembles a pick-up. Most likely, the area that looks like a cargo bed will be covered with a fabric roof. Judging by the body configuration, it seems to be a luxury cabriolet, not a more affordable one like in the first two generations.
