The Mercedes G500 4x4² is already way over the top, with portal axles, enormous wheels and tires, and eight fancy shock absorbers. But German tuning company Brabus has taken that brobdingnagian beast and emboldened it even better with the Brabus 550 Adventure 4x4², the ultimate in tacticool off-roaders.
If that standard G500 4x4² doesn’t come equipped with enough beefy steel parts slathered in satin black paint, the Brabus 550 Adventure 4x4² has got you covered.
Up front, the 550 Adventure 4x4² gets a chunky black bumper guard, a tough black underride guard, a black front winch, and “robust wire mesh” protecting those special Brabus xenon headlights.
There’s also two brush guards connecting that big grille guard to the roof, a really, really chunky side step (see below), light bars galore, fancy off-road shocks, and—perhaps the tacticool-est feature on the thing— a “black-out switch,” that lets the driver turn off all the lights. You know, in case you get chased by bad guys in the imaginary war zone that is the parking garage of your local country club.
The “independent vehicle refinement specialist” Brabus also added a carbon fiber hood scoop, a carbon fiber tire carrier, big black wheels, a satin black roof rack, and a rear bumper that’s somehow not black!
Under the hood is the same 4.0-liter twin turbo V8 found in the regular G500 4x4², except it’s gotten a pair of new turbos, upping the grunt from about 422 to 550 horsepower, and yielding an enormous 590 lb-ft of torque. The result is a 0-60 sprint that takes only 6.7 seconds.
Because nobody wants to be uncomfortable while driving through an imaginary war zone, the inside is wrapped in opulent “Mastic” leather and aluminum, and there’s even a touch screen in the center console to adjust suspension ride height and damping settings for those shocks which, incidentally, offer “15 percent higher damper fluid volume and thereby tremendous reserves even under maximum loads.” Pretty important stuff for your Beverly Hills neighborhood speed bumps.
There’s no word on pricing, but Brabus says their 550 Adventure 4x4² can be purchased as either a complete vehicle, or converted in stages from a standard G500 4x4².
Brabus calls this their “most off-road-capable BRABUS supercar ever.” That may be so, but with all the fancy G-Wagons out there, this seems a bit played out.