The G-Class is a veritable icon throughout the huge Mercedes lineup. It makes us marvel why the Stuttgart-based automaker has but to capitalize on the off-roader’s model energy by launching derivatives. There have been particular editions just like the Maybach G650 Landaulet, 4×4 Squared, and the bonkers 6×6, however not everlasting additions to the lineup. Higher late than by no means, a smaller and presumably cheaper different to the go-anywhere SUV is deliberate.

It is going to be a part of what the corporate calls its “largest ever product launch marketing campaign.” In a press launch revealed this week, the German luxurious model promised that the “legendary G-Class household might be expanded with a brand new smaller model.” In a brand new teaser, the g (written in lowercase) seems all coated up on the backside of the G-Class pyramid.

Photograph by: Mercedes-Benz

It is not the primary time we have heard a couple of downsized variant. Mercedes dropped a design sketch of what firm CEO Ola Källenius referred to as the “Little G” in September 2023 on the IAA Munich present. Through the occasion, the top honcho referred to as it the “son or daughter of the long-lasting massive G.” The unique teaser of a boxy SUV did not reveal something both, as that white define would possibly as properly depict a Suzuki Jimny. Ideally, Mercedes would echo the Japanese off-roader by promoting three- and five-door variants.

Mercedes stays tight-lipped concerning the G-Class offshoot, though the mannequin was first introduced a couple of 12 months and a half in the past. Probably the most important piece of the puzzle we’re lacking shouldn’t be essentially the design however how a lot the Little G will share by way of {hardware} with the full-fat Geländewagen. Will it have a body-on-frame platform, or will it’s unibody? Both manner, it should have true off-road chops to reside as much as the G’s fame.

Two years in the past, the German enterprise paper Handelsblatt reported that the petite G-Class can be mechanically associated to the next-gen CLA, which premieres subsequent month. If true, the g will not have a ladder body, which might certainly upset purists. Assuming it is associated to the infant Mercedes sedan, anticipate a totally electrical model, probably joined by a mild-hybrid powertrain based mostly on a brand new 1.5-liter, four-cylinder gasoline engine.

We must always level out that Mercedes has greater fish to fry, so the g might need to attend. Along with the brand new CLA, the revamped compact automobile household will embody replacements for the CLA Capturing Brake, GLA/EQA, and GLB/EQB. Transferring larger within the portfolio, electrical variations of the C-Class, E-Class, and GLC are coming. The S-Class is getting a “main improve” in 2026, and AMG has a pair of EVs developed solely in-house on the way in which.