Mercedes 500 GE V8 Was Built 446 Times in 1993

The Mercedes 500 GE V8 was a G Class with an S Class engine under the hood, and Mercedes Benz built only 446 of them after the truck appeared at the Geneva Motor Show in March 1993. The company credits it as the first high performance luxury offroader and says it paved the way for every G Wagon sold since.

That claim sits inside the 140 Years of Innovation program, which counts from Carl Benz's patent application of January 29, 1886, the milestone Mercedes Benz Museum marked at ModaMiami in March. The anniversary has pulled the G Class forward all year, and the 500 GE V8 is the oldest piece of evidence for why.

1979 in Graz, Then Fourteen Years of Waiting

The G Class began as a joint project. Daimler Benz and Steyr Daimler Puch opened talks in 1969, and by autumn 1972 the two chief executives, Dr Joachim Zahn and Dr Karl Rabus, had agreed to build a light offroad vehicle together. Erich Ledwinka of Steyr Daimler Puch led the construction team, prototypes were running by 1974, and Bruno Sacco later refined the styling.

Production started in 1979 at Puch's plant near Graz, Austria, with four engines: the petrol 230G and 230GE and the diesel 240GD and 300GD. It was a utility vehicle, and none of the four was a flagship engine.

5.0 Liters Borrowed From the S Class

The 500 GE V8 changed that brief. It took the 5.0 liter M117 V8 from the S Class, rated at about 240 PS or 237 horsepower, and fitted it to the G Class for the first time as an eight cylinder. It was sold only as the long wheelbase station wagon, with an automatic gearbox and ABS.

The idea came from the Mercedes Benz Off road Vehicle Product Unit, which wanted a top engine for the range. Mercedes Benz's own history of the model says the truck was shown at Geneva but never formally introduced.

Later in 1993 AMG answered with the AMG 500 GE 6.0, which enlarged the engine to 5,959 cc. The V8 returned to the regular range in 1998 as the G500.

446 Built, Three of Them Badged Puch

Mercedes Benz planned roughly 500 units and finished at 446, built between 1993 and 1994. Coverage of the model gives its 1993 starting price as 178,250 Deutschmarks.

Three of the 446 left the factory as Puch 500 GE trucks. Under the agreement between Daimler Benz and Steyr Daimler Puch, G Wagens sold in Austria, Switzerland, Yugoslavia, Mongolia and the COMECON countries of Eastern Europe wore the Puch G name, and the rest of the world got the Mercedes star. The first of the three, registered in Austria and used as a homologation and press car, was headed to RM Sotheby's Essen auction when it was last reported.

From 2023, Mercedes Benz notes, a well kept 500 GE V8 can qualify as a historic cultural asset, which in Germany opens the door to an H registration plate after appraisal. The company now treats a truck it barely introduced as heritage.

The 2026 G Class Keeps Borrowing Its Own Playbook

The 500 GE V8 established a pattern: take something from the flagship, put it in the G, and make very few. This year the pattern has appeared three times in different clothes.

In July, Mercedes Benz Middle East built 35 Mirage edition AMG G63 trucks in a verde silver magno finish for Saudi Arabia and Gulf markets. In September, Verdy put his Visty character in sage green camouflage on a G Wagon for a capsule and exhibition at Mercedes Benz STUDIO. On October 13, the S Class donated its quilted diamond interior pattern to the adidas Samba OG x Mercedes Benz, the same S Class that supplied the engine in 1993.

A company counting back to 1886 keeps returning to the G Class. The anniversary also has a road component: three new S Class sedans have been driving the 140 Places route, more than 50,000 kilometers across six continents, with the finish planned for Stuttgart in October 2026.

The temperature read: late, in the good way. The 500 GE V8 has been a collector's truck for years, and its 446 build run is the measuring stick for every limited G since. The 35 Mirage trucks are less than a tenth of that number, and the Samba is a shoe. The 1993 truck is still the only one in the set that put an S Class engine behind the grille.