Brabus reveals 1450Nm G-Wagen
Too many tuners have been fiddling with the G-Class, and Brabus is about to make them feel very unwelcome…Small operators from Khan in the UK to just about any German workshop with an engine mapping kit is selling tuning kits for the Mercedes-Benz G-Class.
And the encroachment hasn’t done much for Brabus’s mood, which is why it will debut its 850 6.0 Biturbo Widestar version of the off-roader at next week's Frankfurt motor show.
While it may seem ill-advised to anybody who has pushed a G-Wagen’s dynamic envelope, the 850 6.0 Biturbo Widestar will deliver a don’t-argue 1450Nm torque mountain and thump the five-door machine to 100km/h in four seconds.
That’s as fast as the new Mercedes-Benz C 63 AMG sedan, which muddles by on a humble 700Nm of torque, but the Brabus off-roader delivers a crunching 625kW of power on top of its torque-fest.
It tries to get around the ancient G-Wagen chassis’ dynamic deficiencies by widening the body and running on 23-inch wheels and tyres, which ought to be fun at the artificially limited 260km/h top speed Brabus boasts.
The 2550kg monster runs on forged alloy wheels and uses Brabus’s own Dynamic Ride Control suspension system, and is powered by a twin-turbo 6.0-litre V8, which has been limited to Brabus versions of the CLE, E, SL and S-Class Benzes.
Its capacity rises from the 5461cc standard AMG V8 to 5912cc (so, technically, it’s a 5.9-litre motor), and it’s filled with eight forged pistons, each with 99mm diameters, a billet crankshaft and a longer (96mm -- up from 90.5mm) stroke.
It also has new, larger turbochargers and a new exhaust system for freer breathing, plus a heat-reflecting gold foil on the intake air pipes from the intercooler to the engine.
There’s also a carbon-fibre bonnet scoop, with an (cough, cough) inconspicuous chequered-flag design, to house the air-filter and the new intake manifold.
Surprisingly, the damage to the fuel economy isn’t as bad as expected. It turns in an NEDC combined figure of 13.8L/100km, which equals 322g/km of CO2 emissions.
All this gristle hits the wheels via a seven-speed automatic transmission, then punches through a strengthened all-wheel drive system out to the widened wheels.
Pushed out by 120mm, the 11J x 23 alloys cope with Pirelli, Yokohama and Continental rubber, measuring 305/35 R23. And they’re not cheap.
It tries to manage the wayward (at least at speed) G-Wagen chassis via a Ride Control system developed around Bilstein’s two-stage adjustable dampers.
The wildest ever G-Class features a typically expensive interior, including the powered seats from the S-Class limousine in the rear, with the occupants also getting power-retractable tables.
There’s also a WLAN router and a 4G modem to connect the car to the internet.
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