Is this Mercedes S-class the ultimate luxury off-roader?

Wednesday, 9 October 2019

It seems like every luxury car manufacturer is muscling in on Range Rover's 'luxury off-roader' niche that it pretty much had to itself.

After all, we now have SUVs from Bentley, Rolls-Royce and even Lamborghini.

But if you want real off-road prowess with your luxury, you need look no further than this remarkably subtle and low-key conversion of a Mercedes-Benz S-class into a full-blown off-roader.

It's hard to pick, but this Mercedes-Benz S-class has been converted to 4WD.

Just kidding - there's nothing subtle or low-key about this monstrosity.

**READ MORE:

This is what is sitting underneath that S-class body - a GAZ-66. That would probably explain the off-road ability then.

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* This compilation of slow-motion car crashes is brutal

* Five brilliant first tries at SUVs**

Because it is all in Russian, there is little information we can glean (if you speak Russian, feel free to let us know more!), but as far as we can tell (and what we have scraped up from around the internet), this beast is a W140 S500 body on the chassis of a GAZ-66 Soviet-era army truck.

From the looks of a previous video it actually seems fairly driveable on the road, and from this video we can see it is pretty damn capable off it as well, which given that it probably weighs more than the moon is no small achievement.

Apparently the monstrous hybrid is for sale for a hefty US$77,000 (NZ$122,000), which will either be horrifying or an utter bargain, depending on your particular point of view.

Oh, and that other insanely capable thing in the video? That's a Russian designed and built Sherp ATV that is on a whole other level again…