Around the World
Expedition and overland use is where the G-Class earned its reputation, above all through Gunther Holtorf and "Otto", the 1988 300GD he drove roughly 900,000 kilometres through 179 countries between 1989 and 2014. Otto now sits in the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart. These are the journeys the car was actually built for.
Part of G-Class
12 moments in this segment.
- — Driving a Front Runner-equipped Gelaendewagen Entdecker in South Africa. Expedition Portal's Scott Brady drives a Mercedes-Benz Entdecker fitted out by Front Runner across South African terrain. The film shows the G-Class in its overlanding role, loaded with expedition kit rather than presented as a showroom object.
- — Gunther Holtorf's lecture on 26 years around the world in a 300 GD. A two-hour talk given at the Mercedes-Benz Berlin branch by Gunther Holtorf, who drove his 300 GD through every drivable country on earth over 26 years. His late wife Christine named the blue G 'Otto', and the couple lived in the vehicle throughout, which is what let them reach places far from any infrastructure.
- — Mike Horn's Pole2Pole expedition with the G-Class. Coverage of Mike Horn's Pole2Pole round-the-world expedition, which set out from Monaco on 8 May 2016 and alternates between his boat Pangaea, skis, kayak and a Mercedes-Benz G-Class. The G-Class carries the land legs of a route running pole to pole via Africa, Antarctica, Oceania, Asia, the Arctic and North America.
- — Inside the Greywolf expedition camper built on a G 300 Professional. A walkthrough of the interior of the 4x4CAMP 'Greywolf', an expedition camper built on a Mercedes-Benz G 300 Professional. It shows how the utilitarian G-Class gets converted into a self-sufficient long-distance travel vehicle.
- — A night inside Otto, the 300 GD that circled the world. One last spontaneous drive and an overnight stay inside 'Otto', the 300 GD in which Gunther Holtorf travelled for 26 years, filmed in 2016 shortly before the vehicle became an exhibit at the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart. It is a close look at how a G-Class was actually lived in across a quarter of a century on the road.
- — Strong Stories: a G-Class along the Silk Road to Singapore. Annette and Stefan Hauser followed the Silk Road across Asia to Singapore in their G-Class and returned by way of a detour through Africa. Their trip is one of the owner journeys Mercedes-Benz collected under its Strong Stories banner.
- — Overlanding a 300 GD through South Africa and Namibia. Ten minutes with a Mercedes-Benz G 300 GD modified for African overlanding, filmed across South Africa and Namibia. It is owner footage of the vehicle doing the long-distance work it was built for.
- — 'Otto', the 300 GD that crossed 179 countries. Gunther Holtorf's 1988 Mercedes-Benz 300 GD, nicknamed Otto, photographed in the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart where it now sits. Between 1989 and 2014 Holtorf drove it roughly 900,000 kilometres through 179 countries, for much of that time with his partner Christine, who died in 2010. It is the single best-documented case of what the G-Class was actually designed to do. The vehicle or site is period; this photograph was taken in 2019.
- — Overlanding to Morocco in a G-Class. Drone and action footage from an off-road overlanding trip to Morocco in a G-Class carrying a roof tent. It is the long-distance travel use the model was originally designed for, rather than the urban role it later took on.
- — Puch G and Pinzgauer on the Hellsklamm trail. Thirteen minutes of off-road footage from a Pinzgauer day on the Hellsklamm trail, with Puch-badged G-Models running alongside Pinzgauers. The Puch name on these cars comes from Steyr-Daimler-Puch, the Austrian partner under which the G was sold in some markets.
- — Short-wheelbase G500 on portal axles in the desert. Off-road footage of a rare short-wheelbase G500 converted to portal axles being driven in desert terrain. Portal axles raise the differentials above the wheel centres for extra ground clearance, the same principle Mercedes later used for the factory 4x4² model.
- — Overland build on a 2006 G55 AMG. A walkthrough of a heavily modified 2006 G55 AMG built for overland travel, with portal axles, a central tyre inflation system, winch, skid plates and long-travel suspension. It shows how owners rebuild the luxury generation back into a serious expedition vehicle.
