Restifi ed G-Wagen Former army truck becomes an heirloom off-road

To the manner Berne

This 1993 G-Wagen started life in service with the Swiss Army. Now demobbed, it has emigrated to the USA – where the team from Legacy Overland were waiting to remanufacture it as a world work piece of automotive art. And being a Mercedes, it took to its new life as if born to the task…

Words: Kaziyoshi Sasazaki Pictures: Legacy Overland

This isn’t the first time we’ve featured a restified Mercedes G-Wagen in these pages. And it won’t be the last. And there’s every chance that one day, someone will look back on them all and note that on every single occasion, we made the same clichéd comment about rappers’ cars.

Here’s why. Every time any of us listen to Radio 1, we seem to hear another rapper banging on about his G. We’re fairly sure it’s not the same guy every time. And yes, thank you, we know there’s another kind of G that used to get rapped about a lot. Despite being old (or maybe because of it), to our ears there’s nothing like a bit of modern toss to remind you of how much better it was back in the old days, when hip-hop legends posed around in custom lowriders rather than just spending huge wads on showroom-spec status symbols.

Has there ever been a rap track called ‘Built not Bought?’ There ought to be.

If there was, maybe it would be by sort of the wordsmith whose talents could pay for a truck like the G-Wagen you see here. Built by Legacy Overland, it’s not the sort of brand new AMG tart-speccer that keeps cropping up in disposable hip-pop dross with no imagination; it’s a truck with vision, originality and the sort of style only a boutique build can achieve, and that puts it way beyond the scope of anyone whose vibe is that money has an instant answer to everything.

Not that you’d get your hands on this vehicle without having a hefty wad of money to spend. It’s a top-notch resto-mod and those don’t come cheap. But if you know to go looking in the right places, you’ll know that spending it with someone like Legacy Overland marks you out as a punter who knows. A brand new G is still a thing with class – but the money that buys it can sometime come from places that have none. An individual work of automotive art, on the other hand… you’ve got to be working at a certain level to appreciate a truck like this.

You need to be working at a certain level to build one, too. Which is what Legacy Overland do. With Land Rovers, Land Cruisers and G-Wagens alike – if it’s classic and a proper off-roader, these guys specialise in reimagining it. Not just on the surface, either – the company’s motto is ‘New Vintage Motors’ and that rings absolutely true when you see the depths of the engineering that go into its vehicles. Wood and leather can be used to hide sometime ugly – or to highlight something beautiful. And Legacy Overland, which is based in a part of Greenwich, Connecticut, that’s so leafy you’d never believe you were less than an hour from Times Square, builds vehicles that are very beautiful indeed.

It’s a beauty that runs deep. And this 1993 GE230, nicknamed Project Stuttgart, is beautiful in the way only a classic off-roader can be. Which is to say that if you can’t see why it’s so much cooler than just lobbing six figures at a main dealer, there’s no hope for you.

People who buy restified classics like this are probably quite well versed in the art of lobbing six figures at a main dealer too, of course. The difference is that Legacy Overland’s customers understand the finer things in life, not just the more expensive ones.

And this is a very fine thing indeed. It started off in the Swiss Army, so you can safely assume that it was very well looked after indeed during the first part of its life but also that back then it was about as basic as a truck can be. Which of course made it perfect as a blank canvas for an imaginative rebuild.

Some of the classy touches on this vehicle are indeed right out of the top drawer. But before we get to those, let’s look at what went in to making it fit the mechanical bill. Legacy Overland makes ‘New Vintage Motors’, remember, not ‘All Fur Coat And No Knickers’ – and before its vehicles get anywhere near the trim shop, first the company’s engineers go to work on them.

Merc’s OM102.981 petrol engine remains beneath the bonnet, for example. This is a 2299cc four-pot with a 95.5mm bore and 80.25mm stroke, and when new it produced a quoted 123bhp – ‘when new’ being the operative phrase, because of course it’s just been completely rebuilt and if we were to lay a bet, it would be for the original figures to be right on the money.

Behind the engine, the original transmission (complete with automatic gearbox) has been overhauled. But it’s when you get to the axles that you start to find the modifications. For one thing, we’re fairly sure that the Swiss Army never used 275/55s and 20” AMG light alloys on its trucks; these are OEM spec for the modern G65, which at least gives the vehicle some sort of a visual link to those rap star cars. And for another, the suspension has been rebuilt using +2” coil springs. Now you’re talking…

The power steering has been rebuilt too, along with all its linkages, and the whole lot was reassembled on a chassis that was stripped back, prepped and repainted. Not that there was too much required in this area, because while the floor did want some welding here and there the vehicle’s structure was in a generally sound condition before work began. When the body’s turn came for a session in the spray booth, it was repainted in Scafell Grey – a Land Rover colour, for all you anoraks out there, or just ‘grey’ if you’re not one.

The body was finished off with integrated side steps, a Canadian-spec snorkel and a swing-away spare wheel mount complete with a Merc deepdish cover, as well as details including an exterior jerry can cradle, LED lights all round with guards to match and a choice of full and bikini-style soft-tops in three-ply black mohair. All very nice and classy but not in-your face and certainly in keeping with the G-Wagen’s background as a military truck.

Inside, on the other hand, it’s safe to say that the Swiss Army has never seen anything like this in active service. The cabin has been trimmed by hand in distressed leather from top-end New York specialist Garett, which covers the seats, dash, gear lever and handbrake shrouds, side panels and more. The seats feature diamond quilting,

Some eye-opening before-and-after action here. The G-Wagen arrived with Legacy Overland as an old Swiss Army truck – still in its military uniform, which you may well approve of, but the state of it might not have turned you on quite as much. Either way, it was clearly ripe for restoration – which is of course what the company specialises in. Actually, ‘restoration’ barely scratches the surface of how completely its vehicles are remanufactured – its motto is ‘new vintage motors,’ and with it having been taken down to literally every single component and build back from scratch to OE standard or beyond, it’s every inch a heirloom truck

While it wasn’t a fully fledged rot box by any means, the G-Wagen’s body underwent plenty of prep work to take it back then get it ready for painting. In effect, Legacy Overland’s builds are OE-style in that they start with a body in white – it’s just that the shade of white depends on what colour the vehicle was before it was born again

too, and down below the floor is trimmed in black carpets with a German square-weave pattern.

That’s just the beginning, though. The instrument cluster has been completely rebuilt, and between in and the driver sits a vintage Mercedes wooden steering wheel.

And if thought that was cool, check this out. The knobs on top of the gearbox and transfer case shifters, as well as the handbrake lever, were hand-turned in olive wood. And in the back, the floor is fully boarded out in timber with a shimmering gloss polish to it.

There’s a pair of inward-facing benches here, which fold up when not in use. Beneath them are courtesy lamps, part of a fit-out which includes more of the same in the side panels and under the dashboard.

And that’s just the start of the extra electrical items inside the G-Wagen. It’s been completely rewired and now features USB ports, a reversing camera and a double-DIN Bluetooth stereo with six speakers, dual subs and a 1000W amp.

Most impressive of all, perhaps, the team from Legacy Overland designed and installed their own air-conditioning system which uses the vehicle’s own original vents and controls. You see a lot of innovative stuff going into big-budget builds like this, but that really is a new one on us…

Mainly, though, what makes this vehicle so very special is the incredible depth of the detailing that’s gone into it. Or perhaps it’s not. Perhaps it’s the groundwork that was laid at the start of the project. Or perhaps it’s the fact that when you’re rebuilding such a supreme vehicle as this magnificent old Merc, you can hardly help but do a good job of it.

Either way, as Legacy Overland put it, ‘an exquisite nuts-and-bolts restoration like this demands an out-of-this-world interior to match. So we did that and then some.’ Not everything about it might be to your taste – but even the least imaginative of identikit pop stars would surely be able to understand that old though it might be, this is the sort of Merc it takes more than just deep pockets to create.