Racing and Rallying
Jacky Ickx and Claude Brasseur won the 1983 Paris-Dakar in a 280 GE — the same year Mercedes also took the truck category, making it the only manufacturer to have won the event outright in two different categories. Competition tested the design far harder than any customer would.
Part of G-Class
8 moments in this segment.
- — Mercedes 280 GE and Renault 20 Turbo duel on the 1982 Paris-Dakar. Period footage of a Mercedes-Benz 280 GE working to pass a Renault 20 Turbo on the 1982 Paris-Dakar. The Marreau brothers' Renault 20 Turbo 4x4 won that edition outright with Jacky Ickx and Claude Brasseur second in the 280 GE, before Mercedes-Benz took the win the following year.
- — Jacky Ickx's Mercedes 280 GE on the Paris-Dakar. Period rally footage of the Mercedes-Benz 280 GE campaigned by Jacky Ickx and Claude Brasseur on the Paris-Dakar. The pair finished second in 1982 and won the rally outright in 1983, which remains the G-Class's biggest competition result.
- — Bobtail G-Class rock crawling at the Ehden 4x4 challenge. Competition footage of a shortened 'bobtail' G-Class running 37-inch tyres on beadlocks with front and rear diff locks at the Ehden Spirit 4x4 challenge in Lebanon. The uploader notes it has been re-engined with a Chevrolet 350 V8, which is typical of the heavily rebuilt G-Class used in serious off-road competition.
- — Jacky Ickx and Claude Brasseur win the Paris-Dakar. Mercedes-Benz's archive clip on the G's victory in the passenger car category of the Paris-Dakar desert rally, with Jacky Ickx and Claude Brasseur driving. It remains the model's best-known competition result.
- — A recreation of the Paris-Dakar Porsche support G-Wagen. A short film about a detailed recreation of the Mercedes G-Wagen that ran support for the Porsche team on the Paris-Dakar rally in the mid-1980s. The video's title and its own description give different years for the event, so the exact edition should be treated as unconfirmed.
- — A G 500 prepared for rally raid. A Mercedes-Benz G 500 prepared for rally-raid competition. Privateers kept the G in desert racing long after the factory effort ended, sustaining the link back to the 1983 Paris-Dakar win. The vehicle or site is period; this photograph was taken in 2022.
- — The 280 GE that won the 1983 Paris-Dakar. A Mercedes-Benz 280 GE in Paris-Dakar rally specification. Jacky Ickx and Claude Brasseur won the 1983 Paris-Dakar outright in a 280 GE run by the German team Mercedes had quietly backed. It remains the G-Class's single most important competition result and did more for the model's image than any advertising campaign. The vehicle or site is period; this photograph was taken in 2023.
- — Paris-Dakar 280 GE at Techno-Classica. A Paris-Dakar-liveried 280 GE displayed at Techno-Classica Essen. The rally cars were close to standard underneath - the point Mercedes wanted to make was that a showroom G-Wagen could cross the Sahara. Photographed at Techno-Classica Essen. The vehicle is period; the photograph is not.
