Some modifiers and restomodders of original Land Rover Defenders make similar mistakes, fitting weird LED headlight units, modern paint finishes and wheels that look far, far too big. The ‘Stronger than the 1980s’ G-Class is our old gent slipping back into his brogues and tweed. He looks right again.
I feel like we’ve talked around this retro subject before. Many car designers don’t like retro designs, because they’re in the business of making new things, not rehashing old ones.
But the G-Class isn’t a new car and some of the aesthetic options you can put on one feel like that white rendering and grey window framing people seem intent on putting on previously characterful houses.
Fashion aside, I think this new G-Class just looks more authentic, more fit for purpose. If one is going to have a big 4×4, why fit wheels and tyres that don’t suit off-roading and paint it such that you wouldn’t dare take it near a thorn bush?
In the past year, I’ve spent time in a new Land Rover Defender 130 on big, shiny black alloys and with satin black paint and in an Ineos Grenadier with neither of those things.
The Defender is the better car to drive: it’s calmer, more relaxing, more comfortable, quieter, brilliantly capable off road and tows for Britain. But I felt sufficiently less conspicuous in the Grenadier that, spec for spec, it’s the one I’d have.
Maybe I’ve never reached a stage in life where I don’t care what other people think. But cars, particularly those bought for a want and not a need, do say something about their owners, don’t they?
This G-Class looks like it has been specced and built and is owned for the reasons it was first intended. And I’d rather drive that, even if it’s a slightly ‘worse’ car than a regular one, which it might be.
Those tyres will probably give it less directional stability and certainly squidgier steering, and as they’re probably heavier might not even improve the ride. Does that make me shallow? Oh well.